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Synopsis

The Bombay High Court has recently acquitted a man booked in a rape case while observing that no girl of ordinary prudence would meet a man in a hotel on their first meeting.

“In my opinion, this conduct of the victim is not consistent with the conduct of a person of ordinary prudence placed in a similar situation. The victim has stated that the accused had booked a room for them. A girl meeting a young boy for the first time would not go to a hotel room. Such a conduct on the part of a boy would obviously send the alarming signals to the girl,” the order reads.

A single-judge bench of the high court at Nagpur comprising Justice GA Sanap was hearing an appeal filed by a rape accused against the order of the Sessions Court convicting him.

The victim, in her complaint, stated that she connected with the accused on Facebook and later exchanged phone numbers.

Subsequently, the accused visited her and asked her to accompany him to a hotel room. The accused then allegedly took out a T-shirt and asked the victim to wear it. However, the accused clicked pictures of her while she was changing.

The accused then threatened to circulate the photographs if the victim refused to have sexual intercourse. Fearing defamation, the victim had sexual intercourse with him.

Despite this, the accused circulated the pictures on Facebook and sent them to her relatives. Following this, the victim filed an FIR against the accused.

The high court, in its order, noted that if a girl is with an unknown person in a hotel and finds herself in trouble, she is bound to raise a hue and cry.

“It is to be noted that a girl meeting an unknown person for the first time would not accompany him to a secluded place. Even if, on some promise, the girl accompanies an unknown person to a room and if she is put in any trouble, then she is bound to raise hue and cry. It is not the case of the victim that the room of the hotel was far away from the crowded area of hotel. In my view, the occurrence of the incident in the hotel room, therefore, appears to be unbelievable. The subsequent conduct of the victim is not consistent,” the order states.

The bench also noted that even though the pictures were publicized in March 2017, there was a delay in lodging the report, which was only filed in October 2017.

“The victim and her father are silent as to why, despite publication of the photographs in March-2017, the report was lodged in October, 2017. It is evident that the victim, after noticing the attitude of the accused, discontinued her relationship with him. It is, therefore, possible that the accused might have decided to trouble them and therefore, on repetitive publication of the photographs of the victim in social media, the parents would have lodged the report,” the order states