The burden of proof is upon both of the complainant and accused, the Court said while upholding the acquittal of a man accused of rape on false promise of marriage.
The law on sexual offences is appropriately women-centric, but this does not imply that the male partner is always at fault, the Allahabad High Court recently observed in a case involving rape based on a false promise of marriage.
A Division Bench comprising Justices Rahul Chaturvedi and Nand Prabha Shukla stated that the burden of proof in such cases lies with both the complainant and the accused.
These observations were made while upholding the acquittal of an accused in a rape case.
“No doubt, chapter XVI “Sexual Offences”, is a womensentic (sic) enactment to protect the dignity and honour of a lady and girl and rightly so, but while assessing the circumstances, it is not the only and every time the male partner is at wrong, the burden is upon both of them,” the Court observed.
The Court was hearing the complainant’s appeal against the acquittal of the accused in a rape case. The accused had also been charged under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
In 2019, the victim filed a police complaint alleging that the accused had established a sexual relationship with her under the promise of marriage but later refused to marry her. She also claimed that he had made derogatory remarks about her caste.
In 2020, the accused was formally charged. Earlier this year, the trial court acquitted him of the rape charge but convicted him under Section 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The victim subsequently appealed against the trial court’s verdict.
In response, the accused told the Court that their relationship was consensual and that he had decided not to marry her after discovering that her true caste was not ‘Yadav’ as she had claimed.
After considering the arguments and evidence, the Court noted that the complainant had been married in 2010 but started living separately from her husband after two years.
It also observed that the complainant had denied her previous marriage and claimed ignorance about her name in the family register presented to the trial court.
“On this score, the learned trial court has rightly given a finding that under circumstances, it is highly unlikely that the accused-respondent have trapped her in the false pretext of marriage. Secondly, assuming for the sake of argument, that some promise was extended to her but after the emergence of this new fact, that victim is already married to xxx and that marriage still subsist, then any amount of promise to marry would automatically get evaporated,” it said.
Regarding the applicability of the SC/ST Act in the case, the Court stated that the caste of the parties plays a crucial role in establishing the permanence of any relationship in society.
In this context, it noted that the complainant was unable to substantiate her claim regarding her caste.
“Therefore, it can be easily inferred that a lady who is already married and without dissolution of her earlier marriage and concealing her caste has maintained the physical relationship for good 5 years without any objection and hesitation and both of them have visited numbers of hotel, lodges at Allahabad and Lucknow and enjoyed the company of each other. It is difficult to adjudicate who is befooling whom?,” it said.
The Court thus concluded that the trial court had rightly acquitted the accused.
“It is unswallowable proposition that a weaker sex is being used by the male partner for five good years and she keep on permitting him on so called false pretext of marriage. Both of them are major and they understand the gravity of the situation and the far reaching repercussion of pre-marital sex and still they maintained this relationship at different places, different cities, which clearly indicates that this acquisitions that she was subjected to sexual harassment and rape cannot be accepted,” it said