New Delhi: A Delhi court has acquitted a man of the charges of raping and criminally intimidating a married woman in a hotel room in Haryana in 2016, saying her testimony did not inspire confidence.
Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Kumar granted the relief to the Southwest Delhi resident, noting that there was a delay of over three months in lodging the FIR which too was not properly explained by the prosecution.
"The prosecutrix (woman) had ample opportunity to lodge a complaint against the accused after the incident. The stand taken by her that she did not lodge the complaint against the accused as she was threatened, does not inspire confidence.
"On scrutinising the versions narrated by the woman, it seems that the prosecutrix has not presented the true facts," the court said.
It also noted that there was no medical evidence to substantiate the woman's version that she was raped by the accused.
"The delay in lodging the FIR, the testimonies of the witnesses and the associated circumstances leave a mark of doubt to treat the testimony of the woman as so natural and truthful to inspire confidence.
"As the prosecution case would show, her testimony does not inspire confidence and the circumstantial evidence do not lend any support to the same. In the absence of both, this court is of the view that accused is liable to be acquitted," the court said.
According to the prosecution, in June 2016, the woman lodged a complaint alleging that the man, who was known to her for seven years being her neighbour, had raped her in March 2016 after giving her stupefying substance mixed in water in a hotel room at Bahadurgarh, Haryana.
She had also alleged that the accused had threatened her with dire consequences if she disclosed the incident to anyone.
An FIR was registered on her complaint and later the court framed charges against the accused under the Sections of 376 (rape), 328 (causing hurt by means of poison) and 506 (criminal intimidation) under IPC.
The accused pleaded that he had given money to the husband of the woman and when he demanded it, the couple lodged a false case against him.
