Bengaluru court acquits man accused of forcing wife to have unnatural sex, cites lack of proof

The order added, “The evidence produced is characterized by delay, embellishment, absence of contemporaneous medical and forensic corroboration, lack of any independent witnesses and investigation that does not demonstrate an independent application of mind.”

The woman’s complaint

Before getting married in 2015, the man and the woman developed a relationship during their tenure as research scholars at IIT Mumbai. In a 2017 complaint, the woman alleged that her husband abused her in filthy language and forcefully subjected her to unnatural sex after marriage. In the woman’s absence, her husband allegedly sent her private photos to her father and friends on Facebook and WhatsApp without her consent. The photos were later deleted, as per the complaint.

In 2017, the woman lodged a zero FIR in Chhattisgarh, which was transferred to the Viveknagar police station in Bengaluru. In 2019, the police filed a chargesheet against her husband only for offences punishable under Indian Penal Code (IPC) section 498A (cruelty from husband or his relatives).

On a petition filed by the woman, the Karnataka High Court ordered a reinvestigation into the case in 2022. The police then filed an additional chargesheet against her husband under IPC sections 498(A) (cruelty), 377 (unnatural sex), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) and Information Technology Act sections 67 and 66(E). The prosecution examined 12 witnesses.

IPC section 377 requires proof of specific and distinct ingredients

The magistrate court noted that to sustain a conviction under IPC section 377, the prosecution must establish beyond a reasonable doubt that there was carnal intercourse and that the act was non-consensual in cases involving adults.

Judge Chatni opined, “Each of these ingredients is indispensable. Failure to prove even one of the above ingredients would be fatal to the charge.”

The prosecution relied heavily on the woman’s testimony to prove its case.

However, the court said, “The prosecution has not produced any independent eyewitness, no contemporaneous disclosure forming part of the transaction and no surrounding circumstance or objective material lending assurance to the allegation.”

“There are material alterations, inconsistencies, improvements between the complainant’s initial version and her oral testimony, affecting the core narrative of the alleged offence. The variations in the narrative are not cosmetic; they strike at identification, sequence, and manner of commission,” the court said.

The court underlined that in a medical examination conducted on the complainant in 2017, the doctor had opined that no definite opinion could be given about anal sex.

The court said, “Notwithstanding these assertions, no contemporaneous medical consultation was undertaken in 2015. No hospital visit, no clinical examination, no prescription and no treatment record from the period of alleged repeated painful acts form part of the prosecution record.”

The woman claimed she had suffered a lot of pain after the alleged anal sex.

No evidence linking husband to alleged act

The court noted that even though the complaint alleged that the accused had unnatural sex with her while they were pursuing their education at IIT Mumbai and after marriage, the prosecution did not produce any forensic or scientific material referable to the alleged acts.

“No bedding, clothing, or material object from the relevant period was seized or sent for analysis; no biological sample was collected; no FSL report has been placed on record; no CCTV footage from IIT Bombay was secured; no access records, institutional logs, or contemporaneous electronic trace linking the accused to the alleged occurrence have been produced,” the court order said.

Delay in reporting

The court considered the fact that the complaint was filed three years after the alleged incident. “No complaint was lodged during cohabitation; none upon separation in 2016, none even after subsequent disputes. The zero FIR was registered only in March 2017, after notice in restitution proceedings was received in February 2017,” it said.

The order added, “In such circumstances, the delay ceases to be neutral and becomes “a relevant factor” in assessing whether the version is free from ‘embellishment or exaggeration’.”

Delay in medical examination

The medical examination of the woman was conducted at 1.20 pm on March 29, 2017, eight days after the initiation of proceedings.

“The eight-day interval between complaint and examination represents a lost evidentiary window attributable entirely to the investigation,” the court said.

The court added, “The prosecution cannot now rely upon the absence of medical affirmation as a neutral circumstance when the absence is the direct consequence of investigative delay. The benefit of that deficit must enure to the accused.”

Procedural deficiency in probe

The court noted that police had failed to record the statements of the woman’s neighbours. “The surrounding environment in which repeated penetrative acts are alleged was left unverified. Where the prosecution alleges repeated anal penetration within a residential setting yet does not undertake basic circumstantial verification of that setting, the resulting evidentiary vacuum must operate to the benefit of the accused,” it said.

The court opined that the mere assertion that the alleged acts occurred in the privacy of a matrimonial bedroom does not transform “these foundational ingredients into facts”. “Privacy of setting cannot be used to reverse the burden of proof,” it added.

The court rejected the supportive evidence from the woman’s father for the claim of cruelty.

“The final report does not show that the investigating officer undertook a separate legal exercise to determine whether the ingredients of Section 498A stood satisfied,” it added.

Nothing to support evidence destruction claim

The court observed that the prosecution has not placed on record any fresh forensic material, expert opinion, deletion log, recovery trail, or intervening investigative discovery that emerged between the earlier stages of investigation and the filing of the final report, which would independently establish the disappearance of evidence.

“The prosecution has failed to establish, beyond reasonable doubt, even the foundational premise that specific “evidence of an offence” existed in an identifiable form at a determinable time, much less that the accused caused such evidence to disappear by a positive act attributable to him,” it added.