Man freed of charge of raping colleague on marriage promise

New Delhi, Sept 7: A Delhi court has acquitted a man of the charge of raping a woman colleague on false promise of marriage after the alleged victim turned hostile saying physical relations between them were consensual.

Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat freed the man, a Delhi resident who was working with an automobile company in Gurgaon, saying, "It appears from the testimony of the girl that she was in love with the accused and wanted to marry him but has nowhere deposed that the accused had promised or assured to marry her."

The court absolved him of the charges of rape and criminal intimidation under IPC while relying on the deposition of the complainant, who was the accused' colleague, that she lied about the rape incidents in a state of anger as everybody in office was asking her when will she marry him.

"Prosecutrix, in her testimony before this court, has categorically deposed that she was having consensual physical relations with the accused and he did not commit forcible sexual intercourse with her on any occasion at all.

"She has deposed that she has mentioned falsely about the incidents of forcible sexual intercourse in her complaint and in her statement before the magistrate in a state of anger as everybody in the office was asking her when she is going to marry the accused," it said.

According to the prosecution, the girl had lodged a complaint alleging that the accused had forcibly established sexual relation with her in a hotel on several occasions from 2010 to 2014.

However, in her cross-examination in court, she deposed that she and the accused were colleagues who fell in love with each other and had consensual physical relations.

The court noted that the girl had also said that in 2010 the accused had proposed marriage to her but she did not accept the same as they both belonged to different castes.

"Thus, as per the girl herself, there was no prospectus of marriage between the two and despite that she engaged in consensual sexual relations with him. Therefore, no offence can be stated to have been committed by the accused," it said.

The accused had pleaded not guilty and claimed he was falsely implicated by the girl under her family pressure.

PTI