Delhi court acquits man of rape charges, orders perjury proceedings against complainant

“The courts are not merely coroners to attend legal or constitutional rights of the ‘aggrieved’ only after they are ‘dead’. Instead, they act as healers to administer the ‘panacea of justice’ to the wounds of the ‘aggrieved’. The word ‘aggrieved’ cannot be confined only to the complainant but there may be cases where even the accused becomes the real sufferer, standing before the court with folded hands and beseeching justice for themselves,” the Judge added.

The Delhi Police submitted before the court that the woman was “in the habit of giving false complaints of molestation and eve-teasing”.

Noting that there were inherent contradictions in the versions of the complainant, the judge said that she never deposed that she was subjected to “any forcible sexual intercourse”.

“… it is clear that the prosecutrix nowhere deposed that she was sexually assaulted by the accused and, rather, her said statement suggests an element of consent on her part for said relationship,” the judge added.

According to the Delhi Police, the complainant was using multiple Facebook IDs with different names to speak with men.

The complainant had stated that the man, who is an accused in this case, had raped and molested her in a hotel in Delhi in November 2019.

“It takes one a lifetime to build a reputation but only a few lies to destroy the same,” the judge said, adding that a simple acquittal could not recompense the agony of the accused who underwent the “trauma of a trial”.