A sessions court on Friday acquitted a man of all rape charges by calling the complainant woman’s rape allegation as an ‘afterthought’.
The January 2015 case, where a domestic help allegedly threw her prematurely born infant out of the bathroom window of her employer’s sixth-floor residence and later filing a rape case against the infant’s father.
The 18-year-old from Karnataka had alleged that the man who worked as a substitute driver for her employers came to their residence and raped her in April 2014.
Her complaint, lodged a few days after she was booked for murdering their infant in January 2015, stated that he had tied her with her dupatta and forced himself on her. She claimed he had then threatened her with a knife not to disclose the incident. The man had left the job when the permanent driver came back.
On January 16, 2015, the woman in her complaint had said that she had stomach pain and was taken to the doctor by her employer. Following this, her employer gave her pain killers and the same day, she went to the bathroom and gave birth to an infant.
She allegedly wrapped the infant in a cloth and threw it from the bathroom’s window. Bleeding profusely, her employer took her to the hospital. The building watchman noticed the dead infant, and a murder case was registered against her.
The woman was absconding in the murder case as she was not found in her native village either. She did not appear before the court to testify against the man, and hence there was no direct evidence against the man, the court stated in its judgment.
It observed that she had ample opportunity to disclose the incident to her employers with whom she lived.
Additional Sessions Judge Priti Kumar (Ghule) said that had she not thrown the newborn, there would have been no allegation that pregnancy was due to rape.
“Her conduct of not raising a hue and cry for several months shows that it was an act of consent between the two adults that led to her pregnancy,” the court said.
