Man acquitted of charge of raping girl whom he later married

A man has been acquitted of charges of raping and beating his girlfriend, whom he later married, by a Delhi court after she retracted her statement.
The court freed the Ghaziabad resident while noting that the woman had deposed that physical relations between them were consensual.
"It is clear that the evidence of the prosecution is neither reliable nor believable and is not trustworthy and the prosecution has failed to establish rape.
"The evidence of the prosecutrix makes it highly improbable that such an incident ever took place. In fact, she has deposed that she had physical relations with the accused with her free consent," Additional Sessions Judge Nivedita Anil Sharma said.

"The conscience of this court is completely satisfied that the prosecution has failed to bring home the charge against accused, for the offence under sections 376 (rape) and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the IPC," the court said.
The court noted that the woman said in her deposition that she has converted to Islam, changed her name and thereafter she and the man got married on March 29 at Delhi.

Since then they are living together happily as husband and wife at Ghaziabad, she said.
A case was registered against the man on the complaint of the woman alleging that he had raped her on the evening of January 17 in Khayala area here and had also beaten her up.

The woman, however, later changed her statement. During cross examination, she deposed that about two years ago she had met the man, who developed friendship with her as he used to visit his maternal aunt (mausi) residing in her locality in Vishnu Garden.
She deposed that they started meeting very frequently and had physical relations with their free consent.