Women use law as weapon in many rape cases: Court

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court acquitted an advocate accused of raping a woman, observing that women use law as a “weapon for vengeance” when consensual physical relations break in many cases.

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Additional sessions judge Sanjiv Jain freed the accused, saying the woman was“mature nough” and capable of giving consent.

“The physical relations between the prosecutrix and the accused were with the consent of the prosecutrix. I therefore acquit the accused..,” the judge said.

The court’s order came on the complaint of the woman, a divorcee, who engaged the accused as her counsel in a road accident case. She had alleged that he misbehaved with her in her house here and raped her.

“The prosecutrix at the time of incident was 38 years of age, quite matured and capable of giving consent. It is not the case that the accused made any false representation to the prosecutrix or elicited her consent to have physical relations with her giving some false promise.

“They knew each other for a long time. The accused used to visit her house. They loved each other. When a quarrel took place between the woman and the accused...she made the complaint alleging rape, though their physical relations were consensual,” the court said.

According to the prosecution, the woman, a resident of South Delhi’s Greater Kailash area, had separated from her husband over a decade ago.

Few years later, she met with an accident and engaged the accused as her counsel, it said, adding that he used to visit her house often since then.

The accused denied the allegations and claimed that the physical relations between them were consensual and the woman did not pay him his fees for handling her case.