Court acquits man accused of raping tenant

A man has been acquitted of charges of raping his tenant by a Delhi court which held that contradictions in the woman's statements on the alleged incident, absence of any injury and her failure to promptly lodge an FIR lead to doubts about the veracity of her claims.

While setting free Delhi resident Raju Lal, who had alleged that he had been falsely implicated in the case by the woman following a dispute over rent, Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna observed that lack of injuries to the woman and delay in lodging of FIR showed the woman's "story was false or the things happened with her consent".

"There exist material contradictions in her statements, coupled with the fact that no injury was ever noticed in her MLC (medical report) and further that she did not show any promptness in lodging the FIR to police, would all show that either the story put forth by her is false or the things happened with her consent," the judge, heading the special fast track court, said, while giving the benefit of doubt to the accused.

"Non raising of hue and cry and not going to the police station promptly would rather make the defence of accused plausible that he has been implicated falsely due to some rent dispute and creates doubt in the story of the prosecutrix," the court said.

According to the woman, on January 14 last year, when she had gone to Lal's house to clean it, he had locked the door from inside and after tying her hands and legs with a 'chunni', he had allegedly raped her.

Later that day, he again called her into his house on some other pretext and had again raped her, she had alleged.

When her husband returned home from work, she informed him about what had happened and on the next day they went to the police station to lodge a complaint against Lal.

The accused in his statement had denied any such incident and said there was a dispute regarding rent between them and that is why he was falsely implicated in the case.

"The allegations of the prosecutrix appear to be flimsy and the conduct of prosecutrix during the entire incident makes her deposition doubtful, for which the benefit of doubt has to be given to the accused," the court said.