Gurgaon rape victim, whom top cops sparred over, faces FIR

A woman whose rape complaint in Gurgaon against the son of a former top cop has led to a showdown between two senior police officers is herself in the dock in a separate sexual assault case. A city court asked authorities on Monday to lodge an FIR against her for fabricating evidence which she used to oppose the bail plea of a man she has accused of rape.

A woman whose rape complaint in Gurgaon against the son of a former top cop has led to a showdown between two senior police officers is herself in the dock in a separate sexual assault case. A city court asked authorities on Monday to lodge an FIR against her for fabricating evidence which she used to oppose the bail plea of a man she has accused of rape.

The development came on a day the Supreme Court issued a notice to Delhi Police on a petition from the accused, Mansher Singh, seeking the case against him be handed over to the CBI, as the bench also stayed an investigation into the matter after his counsel alleged there were lapses in the probe.

Metropolitan magistrate Akash Jain asked police to lodge a case against the woman on a complaint that she hacked into the e-mail account belonging to a friend of the accused, reportedly using a dongle that she took from the investigating officer, and wrote a threatening message to herself.

She used this to contest the plea for relief from Singh, who ultimately got anticipatory bail from the Supreme Court. A report from the Delhi Police’s cyber crime cell confirmed the accusations based on which the magistrate held that a cognisable offence was made out against the woman.

The investigation in the other rape case filed by her came under scrutiny when Gurgaon’s joint commissioner of police (traffic) Bharti Arora accused her boss, police commissioner Navdeep Singh Virk, of harassing her and trying to influence the probe. Virk has denied the charges.

Later on Monday, an apex court bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar took note of Mansher Singh’s petition requesting a free and fair probe. Singh has also referred to the inquiry report of joint CP Arora, in which she observed that “the complainant was habitual in lodging false rape cases against innocent citizens, in connivance with and assistance of some individual local police officials”.

“This is a case of misuse of welfare legislation for women,” said Singh’s counsel Neera Gokhale. “Due to such false litigation, police are not able to investigate cases of real victims.”

She said the Delhi high court had ignored the evidence favouring her client and had declined a CBI probe.