Delhi court acquits Navy officer of rape charges as complainant gives different versions of assault
It appears as if the complaint was lodged to pressure the officer to marry the woman, the judge said.
A Delhi court has acquitted an officer of the Indian Navy accused of rape, saying that the complainant had narrated three different versions of the assault, PTI reported on Friday.
In an order passed on February 6, Additional Sessions Judge Ankur Jain said the woman did not make an effort to “save herself” during the alleged incident and that it appears the complaint was lodged to pressure the Navy officer to marry the complainant, according to The Indian Express.
The assault took place in 2015 when the complainant alleged that the Navy officer, a lieutenant commander, established sexual relations with her on the promise of marriage.
When the marriage did not take place, the woman alleged she had been raped, according to The Indian Express. She claimed that the sexual assault took place during a religious event at her relative’s house, where the officer and his family members had been invited.
The judge said that had the woman made a “slight hue and cry” and added the incident would have caught the attention of her family members present in an adjacent room.
“The offence as alleged, the manner in which it is alleged, could not have been possible either albeit or without the consent of the victim,” The Indian Express quoted the order as saying.
The court observed that at the time of the bail application, the officer succumbed to the pressure and married the complainant but they later got divorced. The counsel for the accused told the court that the relationship between the two parties was consensual.
The court also observed that it was “unnatural” that the woman did not tell her mother about the rape and waited two days till the marriage was called off by the the officer’s mother, according to PTI. “Thus, the benefit of the doubt has to go to the accused [person],” the court order said, according to PTI.