Court reserves order on Ankit Tiwari’s discharge application

A special women’s court in Mumbai on Thursday reserved its order till June 1, on the discharge application filed by playback singer Ankit Tiwari of Aashiqui 2 fame in a rape case.

Advocate Mahesh Vaswani on Thursday argued before the court that, for the sake of argument, even if the FIR is taken as it is, no case of rape is made out because there is ambiguity in it.

He pointed out before the special judge Anju Shende that, as per the complaint, the alleged rape took place in complainant’s house when she had invited Tiwari to a birthday party. “Tiwari was a guest there and the complainant was a host. She said Tiwari had forced her to have a ‘hard drink’ but she has not mentioned if it was liquor, whisky or wine or if it contained alcohol. It is not her case that Tiwari brought the drink with him, the drink was served to guests and when he was offered the drink he insisted she should also have it, so it cannot be said that he forced her to drink something forcefully,” said Mr Vaswani.

He also said the complainant has not said that it was the first time she consumed some hard drink and she was not aware what ‘hard drink’ was being served to guests but still she did not mention if it was liquor or some energy drink. Though the victim has also recorded her statement before the magistrate under Section 164 of the CrPC, which could be used as evidence during the trial and she had mentioned that it was alcohol in her statement, Tiwari’s lawyer maintained he did not force her to have it.

The lawyer argued it was Tiwari’s first visit to the complainant’s house and her daughter, sister and other family members and friends were also present in the house so it is also not probable he could have forcefully taken her to her bedroom and committed rape.

He also said the victim has said she was not in her senses due to the ‘hard drink’ and it was only when she woke up in the morning did she realise Tiwari had raped her. However, she was still able to claim that Tiwari left her house at about 3.30 in the night.

Mr Vaswani claimed that the allegations of rape are totally false and her claim that Tiwari continue to rape her by threatening her of making public her videos is also not true because the police could not find any of her obscene video on his mobile phone.

On the other hand, public prosecutor Kalpana Hire opposed the discharge application, saying that claims of the complainant are corroborated by the statements of witnesses and there are evidence to, prima facie, frame charges against the accused.

She also argued that other claims of the accused are a matter of trial so it is not a fit case to discharge the accused.

After hearing arguments, judge Shende reserved order on the discharge application till June 1.

A case of rape was registered against Tiwari after a 28-year-old married woman alleged the singer raped her on several occasions between 2012 and 2013.