NEW DELHI, May 17: A man has been acquitted of the charges of raping a divorcee by a local court which asked the Commissioner of Delhi Police to take action against the erring officers for not investigating the case properly and concealing material evidence from it.
Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau said the investigation conducted by the police was not “honest” and it was “motivated to assist the accused”.
The court freed Adarsh Nagar resident Sunny Bhagat of the charges of raping, administering poisonous substance and threatening the woman, saying the acquittal was due to lapses committed by the investigating officer, who failed to bring evidence and not on account of “innocence of the accused”.
“The IO, including the senior officers who forwarded and supervised the charge sheet, and the public prosecutor who had scrutinized the file before the case was put in court, were not only professionally lacking but had apparently concealed and withheld material evidence from the court.
“In this background, it is necessary that the copy of the judgement in the present case be placed before the Commissioner of Police, Delhi, as also the Director of Prosecution for information and necessary action against the erring officers,” the judge said.
The court noted that the investigating officer ASI Poonam Tyagi had collected the medical documents, including the abortion report of the woman, a law student, from a hospital but she left it in the police file and did not place before the court.
“The manner in which the charge sheet has been filed not only by withholding material evidence but without conducting complete inquiry and investigation on the relevant aspects has left much to be desired. Either the IO was not fully sensitized to handle the issue or there was a deliberate attempt to withhold and conceal the material evidence,” the court said.
The court’s judgement came while acquitting Bhagat who was accused of raping the woman after drugging her in her office and thereafter repeatedly making physical relations with her on a false promise of marriage in 2011.
Police said when the woman became pregnant, Bhagat got it forcibly terminated by giving her medicines and on her insistence to marry, he threatened and left her.
The court said there was no independent evidence produced by the police to corroborate the testimony of the woman and there were some contradictions in her statement which were required to be analysed with caution.
The court said such cases where a man develops physical relations with a woman on the false promise of marrying her and leaves her when she becomes pregnant and others come to know about it are on the rise.
The judge said deceiving someone with a false promise of marriage amounts to cheating and the IO was required to probe the case in respect of that aspect but the officer failed to do so.
“Except for recording the statement of the woman, getting her medical examination conducted and arresting the accused, nothing else has been done,” the court said.
“It is a settled law that in cases of consensual sex where the said consent has been taken on the pretext of marriage, the standards to be adopted for investigation and inquiry are all together different and it is necessary for the IO to interrogate the persons who are close to the victim and the accused to establish their relationship,…To collect the medical evidence which connects the accused to the alleged offence, which either has not been done and if done has been concealed and withheld from the court,” the judge said. (PTI)
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