New Delhi: The Bombay High Court has granted bail to a man accused of raping a 24-year-old woman. The accused was arrested on March 20, 2020 and has been in jail since. He had befriended this woman through Facebook.
A single judge bench of Justice Smt. Bharati Dangre heard the bail application filed on behalf of Ataullah Fakruddin Ansari. A case was registered against Ansari at Kandivali police station for a crime committed under Section 376 (2) (n) of IPC.
Initially, the accused had filed an application before the Metropolitan Magistrate seeking bail, which was dismissed. He then filed a petition before the high court.
In this case, the alleged victim filed a complaint in January. According to the victim, she came in contact with the applicant through Facebook, after which she uploaded her mobile number on the Facebook account. The applicant then started a phone conversation with him. In 2019, she went to Uttar Pradesh, which is her home state. The applicant also went there.
The complainant asserted that she had told the applicant that she had been married, but her husband had divorced her, after which a close relationship between her and the applicant was formed and as a result a physical relationship was established between them. Later, there was a quarrel between the two and an FIR was lodged.
The court said: “The complaint lodged by the complainant is an immediate response to the said discord.” The complainant had stated that the applicant contacted her several times and she had told her father about it, as a result of which an FIR was lodged at the Kandivali Police Station.
The applicant stated that he had a physical relationship with the complainant as there was good friendship between them and the complainant never objected to these relations. The complainant was 24 years old at the time of the incident and according to the applicant, it was a decision taken by an adult girl in her full consciousness to establish such a relationship.”
Thus, after looking into the facts of the case, Justice Dangre stated: “Both the applicant and the complainant are adults and according to the complainant’s statement she had initially encouraged friendship, after which a physical relationship was formed between them.”
She accompanied the applicant to several places where physical relations were established between them, the judge observed. She never objected. She allowed these relations to flourish from January 2019 till filing of complaint in March 2020. When their relationship soured, she filed a complaint. Seeing this complaint at first sight does not constitute a case of sexual harassment against her will. But the facts of the complaint definitely point towards mutual consent, observed the judge.
The applicant was arrested in March 2020. In the backdrop of the allegations leveled in the complaint, prima facie no case of forced sexual act is made, the judge said.
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In the light of above mentioned facts the court granted bail to the accused with the direction to furnish a bond of Rs 20,000.
Read the Order here;
1597264336pdf– India Legal Bureau