Mumbai: Observing that false implication in rape cases causes distress and humiliation to the accused, the Bombay High Court recently acquitted a 45-year-old man accused of raping a woman five times, in a one-and-a-half hour. The HC also ruled that in cases of rape, the onus is always on the prosecution and not on the accused, to prove the offence. With the orders of the HC set aside the eight years rigorous imprisonment punishment of the man, owing to the serious infirmities in the victim’s testimony, he will finally walk free, after more than a decade. “If the victim is an adult, the court is required to ascertain whether her evidence is reliable and trustworthy. In a case of rape, the onus is always on the prosecution to prove each ingredient of the offence alleged against the accused. Such onus never shifts on the accused,” ruled a single-judge bench of Justice Anant Badar. Justice Badar further held, “In such a case, it is not the duty of the accused to explain as to how and why he is falsely implicated. The offence of rape causes distress and humiliation to the victim thereof and in a similar manner, false accusation of rape causes equal distress and humiliation to the accused.”
The observations were made while hearing a criminal appeal filed by a Satara-based man, who was convicted by a sessions court for rape and criminal intimidation. The man was booked in August 2008, after a woman, a marketing professional registered a complaint with the local police. In her complaint, the woman claimed that on her way back home, the accused offered to give her a lift on his bike, and she accepted. Later, the man threatened to stab her with a knife and accordingly took her to a secluded place and raped her. “The accused then dropped me back to the spot from where he had picked me up. But there he accused me of robbing his wallet and again took me back to the spot, where he raped me earlier,” the woman claimed. “After bringing me again to the same spot of offence, the man raped me four times and then I somehow managed to get out of his clutches and ran away from the spot,” the woman testified before the lower court. While considering her statements, Justice Badar noted loopholes and said, “The woman was having tons of opportunities to seek help from the persons passing by that road. She could have very well stopped other vehicles and she could have narrated her suffering.” Justice Badar noted that, as per her statements, the woman must be contemplating and anticipating that she would be sexually violated by the accused, who was threatening to stab her. “However, still the woman continued her further journey with the accused without any protest from the populous area,” Justice Badar pointed out. “Any woman would certainly get suspicion in her mind that she may be sexually violated if she continues her journey in the company of a male abductor to an isolated place, and that too, in the night hours away from the sight of the world at large. Thus, the version of the woman is not at all in tune with the probability factor. It is not possible to hold that within such a short span of time, all these events can take place,” Justice Badar concluded.
