A Delhi court has acquitted a former JNU student accused of raping his senior on campus, saying it is not the case in every consensual relationship between two adults that a man will be held guilty of rape if he had initially promised to marry the woman but could not do so. “It absolutely belies logic that the prosecutrix would be beaten up and assaulted in the manner deposed by her, and yet would not take any action against the accused for the entire year of 2013,” said Additional Sessions Judge Anu Grover Baliga. It noted that the accused and the prosecutrix, also a former student, were in a “consensual relationship” and the woman had made “exaggerated and false allegations against the accused.” The judge further said there is not a whisper in the entire deposition of the prosecutrix as to why she did not file a complaint against the accused in 2013. “The submission of her counsel, that an Indian woman who has accepted a man as her husband would not make a complaint against such a man, is devoid of any merit. “In the considered opinion of this court, a (woman) like the prosecutrix who was pursuing higher studies in Delhi away from her native place and was working in an institute like JNU, and even editing a newspaper, cannot be heard to make such kind of submissions,” it said. The accused was arrested based on the woman’s complaint that he had allegedly raped her between 2011 and December 2012 on the false pretext of marrying her. She had also alleged the accused used to make her consume contraceptives, as a result of which she started suffering from various physical ailments. Advocate Amit Kumar, appearing for the accused, claimed his client was in a consensual physical relationship with the prosecutrix till December 2012 and it is the woman who severed the relationship as he was unable to get job. The woman’s counsel argued that the prosecutrix did not consent to physical relations with the accused, and was “forced and beaten by the accused to submit to his sexual demands”. The court noted the woman admitted there was a Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment in JNU, yet she had not filed any complaint before it. It was the accused who had filed a complaint against her in February 2014, it added.
