20 years on, HC upholds acquittal of Alibaug man accused of raping teen

Twenty years after an Alibaug resident was accused of raping his house help, the Bombay high court (HC) recently upheld his acquittal, stating that sometimes it

Twenty years after an Alibaug resident was accused of raping his house help, the Bombay high court (HC) recently upheld his acquittal, stating that sometimes it is “dangerous” to convict a person solely on the basis of the survivor’s testimony.

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Justice KR Shriram on December 2 dismissed an appeal filed by the state, challenging the acquittal of the man from Alibaug, accused of allegedly raping his minor house help twice, in December 1999 and January 2000. The HC upheld a session’s court March 2002 order acquitting the accused, after noting the survivor’s testimony was not reliable.

The teenager had approached the police after she became pregnant. According to the complainant, in December 1999, the accused questioned her about her relationship with her boyfriend and raped her after threatening to disclose her affair to her parents. She alleged that he raped her again in January 2000. The Alibaug police on August 20, 2000, registered an FIR and prosecuted the man. However, on March 30, 2002, a sessions court acquitted him, prompting the state to challenge his acquittal in the HC, claiming that the evidence provided by the survivor proved the charge of rape against the accused.

The HC noticed that before and after the purported assaults by the accused, the survivor regularly had sex with her boyfriend. The judge said that though the second purported assault took place in January 2000, the survivor was found to be five months pregnant when she disclosed the matter to her parents in August 2000. “Therefore, certainly, the prosecutrix (survivor) could not have been pregnant with child of accused,” said the judge, adding, “Therefore, in such cases, where the sole testimony is that of prosecutrix, it is very dangerous to convict accused…This would leave accused defenceless.”

The judge was annoyed to note that the prosecution did not submit any evidence to show that the survivor was ever pregnant and whether she aborted or delivered the child. The judge also discarded evidence with regard to the survivor’s age owing to conflicting opinions of medical practitioners.