2014 Uber Rape: Court records show evidence was ‘sealed’

The court had sent the accused, Shiv Kumar Yadav, to life imprisonment. Sources, meanwhile, told The Indian Express that the “physical documents” related to the medical evidence were in the possession of the police before the chargesheet was filed in the case. “The copy of the physical evidence was then given to the prosecution and the defence lawyers once the chargesheet was filed… No other person could have sought the physical copy,” the source said.

The woman sub-inspector, who had taken the woman for medical examination had also deposed before the court that the “two sealed parcels …with the sample seal from the examination doctor” was “taken into police possession through “seizure memo”. The court documents further state that the seizure memo relating to medical evidence, was “signed” by the rape survivor. The attorney for the rape survivor, in California, has said that the woman is “entitled to recovery” against Uber in “an amount to be determined at trial”. “Uber executives violated her a second time by unlawfully obtaining and sharing her medical records and have failed, as of the date of this filing, to apologise to her,” the complaint alleges.

“Former Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick; Eric Alexander, the then VP, Business, Asia; and Emil Michael, Uber’s then Senior VP, Business, bought into the narrative of ‘rape denial’, which focusses on whether a victim had been drinking, what she was wearing, or whether she knew the alleged rapist, rather than on the physical, emotional and financial toll that rape takes on a victim,” it adds. When contacted, an Uber spokesperson said, “No one should have to go through a horrific experience like this, and we are truly sorry that she’s had to relive it over the last few weeks.”