Youth accepts love child, acquitted of rape charge

A youth being tried for rape was acquitted by a local court after he accepted that he had a love child from the alleged victim and they desired to enter into wedlock.

A youth being tried for rape was acquitted by a local court after he accepted that he had a love child from the alleged victim and they desired to enter into wedlock.

The court, which gave the ruling after hearing the couple separately, however, held Barna Dass Danga guilty of cheating the girl by entering into physical relationship on the pretext of marrying her and abandoning her after she became pregnant.

The conviction on the charge of cheating did not come in the way of the court permitting Danga to marry the girl in the presence of the officers from Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) and an NGO.

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Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau allowed Danga to marry the girl after he said he was the father of her child and was always willing to marry her but could not do so due to the objection raised by one of his sisters and brother-in-law.

"...while the case was at the stage of considering the sentence to be imposed upon the convicts, the prosecutrix (girl) was called to the court and given a chamber hearing wherein she expressed her desire to marry the convict Barna Dass Danga.

"Danga was also called and given a detail hearing by this court upon which he professed his love for the girl and informed the court that he was always ready and willing to marry her and has admitted that the child belongs to him," the court said.

The court acquitted Danga of raping the girl noting that she was a major and had consensual relations with him.