New Delhi: A Delhi court has acquitted a guard working with an NGO of the charges of allegedly raping one of its inmates after the girl testified that the relation between them was consensual.
Additional Sessions Judge Sanjiv Jain acquitted the man, who was working as a guard with city-based NGO Nari Nav Jagriti Institute, of the charges of raping one of its inmates, saying "essence of rape is absence of consent".
"She (girl) stated that the accused came in her room, where he established physical relations with her with her consent. She stated that due to fear, she told madam (NGO's owner), who called the police, which took her to the police station where her signatures were obtained on a paper without reading the complaint," the judge said.
The court noted that the girl was declared hostile by prosecution but she categorically stated that accused neither entered her room forcibly nor committed sexual intercourse with her against her wishes.
"The essence of rape is absence of consent. Consent means an intelligent, positive concurrence of the woman. A woman is said to consent, only when she freely agrees to submit herself, while in free and unconstrained possession of her physical or moral power to act in a manner she wanted. Submissions under the influence of fear or terror or false promise is not consent," it said.
The court acquitted the youth, saying the prosecution case was not proved against him under section 376 (rape) of IPC.
According to the prosecution, the victim had told the police in her complaint that she was living in the NGO.
She had said that on June 3, last year, the accused who had been deputed to guard the institute, entered her room and had sexual intercourse with her against her wishes.
After assaulting her, the guard threatened to kill her, if she told anyone about the incident.
After that an FIR was registered in this regard and the accused was arrested. The accused, however, had pleaded not guilty and claimed trial.
