The Gujarat High Court discharged a man who was alleged to rape his girlfriend. She has been alleging that the man raped her for six years on the promise of marrying her.
The Court discharged the man from the rape case that was lodged at Gujarat University Police Station in August 2018. It was the second time when the Gujarat High Court took the decision in favour of a man. Earlier, the same court had quashed a rape complaint filed in 2018 at Mahidharpura police station in Surat.
While discharging the man from the rape case, Justice Gita Gopi said, “There is no ground to even assume that he has committed the offence to consider culpable mentality. The case is of consensual sex.”
It was a case of a married man and a married woman who had two kids. During their six-years relationship, the woman got divorced from her husband.
Soon their relationship took a sharp turn, and the wife lodged an FIR at Mahidharpura Police Station in Surat. When the man moved the High Court for the FIR to be quashed, the woman consented to it and the HC junked the complaint.
Later, she filed another complaint in Ahmedabad. Then, he approached the High Court for discharge in the second case with an argument that the woman was divorced, and had abandoned her husband and children. He said that they were in a consensual sexual relationship for six years and also had been to various cities and tourist spots together.
The woman urged the court that there must be a trial run in the case and that she had agreed to the quashing of the first complaint because the man had given her marriage assurance. Since their relationship continued thereafter, the man broke his promise to marry her and then she filed the second complaint against him.
The woman further said that her consent should be vitiated as she had given it by coming into effect of assurance that the man would marry her.
However, the HC refused to accept the woman’s argument saying that she was married during the beginning of the relationship and so, there was no question of promise of marriage. It indicates that it was simply a case of an extramarital relationship, and she was aware of the pros and cons of such relationships.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/hc-discharges-man-from-rape-case-terms-it-consensual-sex/articleshow/101740746.cms