Raising concerns over the “misuse of rape laws” for implicating men, a special fast-track court acquitted a man of rape charges and has directed the court official to initiate proceedings against the woman for giving false evidence before the court.
“This is a classic example of how men are being implicated in rape cases to settle personal scores. This is a perfect illustration of total misuse of rape laws.. these women, who turn out to be the tormentors, and not the victims, should be punished under the appropriate provisions of law,” Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat said.
The order comes in a case in which the woman had alleged rape by a man, who she claimed, had promised to give her a job. She had told the court that the man and his brother-in-law had taken her to an isolated area and raped her.
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However, the court rejected the prosecution case and observed that there “appears to be no truth in the testimony” of the woman and that she has “spoken lies right from point of lodging the FIR”.
“She gave her fictitious name and fictitious address in the FIR. She did not try to contact the IO to know about the fate of her complaint. It remains a mystery how she identified the accused. It also remains a mystery how the IO determined who the accused was,” the court observed.
The court said men implicated in rape cases undergo “humiliation, disgrace and mental agony” and that his “family is ostracised”.
“Even an acquittal by the court is not taken note of and does little to salvage his lost honour and dignity. He has to live with the trauma of having been a rape accused throughout his life. It is these false rape cases which make the crime graph shoot up, thus playing havoc with the actual crime statistics. These also tend to trivialise the offence of rape,” the judge said.
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The court directed the reader of the court to file the appropriate complaint for allegedly having committed the offence punishable under section 193 of the IPC.
Govt questioned on felling of trees in Vasant Kunj
The Delhi High Court, which had earlier issued a stay on felling of around 800 trees to widen a road in Vasant Kunj, directed the Public Works Department (PWD) on Wednesday to explain how it proposed to cut so many trees when only 226 were earmarked.
According to documents submitted before the court, the Unified Traffic and Transportation Infrastructure (Planning & Engineering) Centre (UTTIPEC), had earmarked felling of only around 226 trees for the project. ens
Kaunain Sheriff M is an award-winning investigative journalist and the National Health Editor at The Indian Express. He is the author of Johnson & Johnson Files: The Indian Secrets of a Global Giant, an investigation into one of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies.
With over a decade of experience, Kaunain brings deep expertise in three areas of investigative journalism: law, health, and data. He currently leads The Indian Express newsroom’s in-depth coverage of health.
His work has earned some of the most prestigious honours in journalism, including the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Award, and the Mumbai Press Club’s Red Ink Award.
Kaunain has also collaborated on major global investigations. He was part of the Implant Files project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which exposed malpractices in the medical device industry across the world. He also contributed to an international investigation that uncovered how a Chinese big-data firm was monitoring thousands of prominent Indian individuals and institutions in real time.
Over the years, he has reported on several high-profile criminal trials, including the Hashimpura massacre, the 2G spectrum scam, and the coal block allocation case. Within The Indian Express, he has been honoured three times with the Indian Express Excellence Award for his investigations—on the anti-Sikh riots, the Vyapam exam scam, and the abuse of the National Security Act in Uttar Pradesh. ... Read More
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