New Delhi: An employee of the Ministry of Commerce has been acquitted by a Delhi court of the charges of raping and sodomising a woman on the pretext of marrying her.
Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Poonam Bamba freed Delhi resident Rajesh Buraria of the charges of raping the 27-year-old woman, who was also working in the same office, on the ground that the prosecution has failed to prove that her consent for physical relations was taken under false promise of marriage.
"The prosecution has also failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused caused the woman to undergo abortion much less without her consent," the court said.
According to the police, the accused who was the woman`s senior, had offered to give her coaching and books for a competition examination for a better job and on this pretext, he had called her to his friend`s house at Talkatora area where he raped her after giving her a cold drink laced with sedatives in 2011.
When the woman regained consciousness and protested, the accused assured her that he would marry her and forcibly established physical relations with her in the future also, police said, adding he had also allegedly committed unnatural sex with her.
In September 2011, when the woman told him that she was pregnant, he allegedly made her consume some pills and took her to a hospital and got her pregnancy forcibly terminated, the police had said.
It further said that in August last year, the accused told her that he could not marry her as his parents were against it and he would only marry a girl of their choice.
This prompted the woman to approach the police for lodging a case against him. The court, however, said the prosecution has failed to show that the accused had no intention to marry the woman right from the beginning and he had extended such promise only to establish physical relations with her.
The court noted that due to the mental trauma which the woman had suffered, she has been undergoing treatment at IHBAS here from the past few months.
"The woman in her statement has stated that on August 16, 2012, the accused had told her that his parents were forcing him to marry elsewhere. Even when she visited the accused` house along with her father and sister, he told his parents that he wanted to marry her. On which, his father sought two days` time but later refused to marry the accused with her.
"From the facts and circumstances, it is evident that the accused was ready to marry the woman all along but could not dare to do so against his father`s wishes," the judge said.
"He may have breached the promise to marry and shattered the faith of the woman but it was not a false promise to begin with. Howsoever unfortunate but it does not amount to an offence under IPC," it said.
The court noted that the hospital authorities had deposed that no abortion took place there on the date mentioned by the woman, though it admitted that she was treated there.
PTI
