Bombay HC grants pre-arrest bail to Maharashtra cop accused of raping colleague

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has granted a pre-arrest bail to a policeman accused of raping a woman colleague, noting it was a consensual act.

A division bench of justices Indrajit Mahanty and A M Badar last week granted anticipatory bail to Navi Mumbai police's crime branch Sub-Inspector Amit Shelar.

Shelar had approached the HC in January this year after a sessions court rejected his anticipatory bail application.

In November 2018, the woman, a constable attached with the Navi Mumbai police's crime branch, lodged a complaint alleging Shelar had raped her in March last year after spiking her cold drink.

The high court, in its order, observed that the complainant is a serving police constable and an adult married woman.

"If the facts stated in the FIR and the text messages exchanged between the complainant and the accused person are considered, prima facie we are of the opinion that the case in hand is a case of consent," the court said.

"Prima facie, we are of the opinion that the act was consensual in nature," the bench said in its order.

"This is a case of a 31-year-old married woman, indulging in sexual relations with her colleague on several occasions without disclosing the fact to her husband," the court said.

It said the FIR was lodged after the complainant's husband found the text messages exchanged between the sub-inspector and the complainant.

In her complaint, the woman said the man had claimed to have recorded the incident and used that to allegedly rape her on multiple occasions thereafter.

In his anticipatory bail plea filed in the HC, through advocate Tanveer Nizam, Shelar claimed he has been implicated in a false case and that he has never committed any crime.

"This is a false FIR and the investigation was clearly motivated. The high court has accepted our arguments on the malafide of the complainant and has also held that this was a consensual relationship," Nizam said.