The Allahabad High Court accorded bail to a 22-year-old rape accused on Thursday, marking that the 17-year-old prosecutrix or survivor had consensual sexual activity with the accused before the purported occurrence of rape. A single-judge bench of Mohd. Faiz Alam Khan rested dependence on the statements of the survivor under section 161 and 164 of the CrPC in addition to the statement of the father of the survivor to wind up with that the petitioner and survivor were having an attachment and were involved in consensual sexual activity 4 to 5 times before the purported rape.
“It Seems that the accused and the girl were having a relationship and the girl in her confession recorded under Section 161 CrPC has confessed that the prosecutrix, as well as the applicant, had involved in consensual sexual activity for 4-5 times preceding to the queried incident,” the order said.
It was also observed by the Court that, “The age of the prosecutrix is about 17 years and having hold to the fact that she was studying in D.N.M. Institute of Engineering, it could not be ruled out that she was possessing sufficient knowledge and was in a position to fully comprehend the nature and consequences of sexual activity,“.
The court proceeded with the order in a bail application begged by the accused against whom the case was registered under sections 363 and 376 of the Indian Penal Code along with sections 3 and 4 of the POSCO Act, 2012. The survivor had also stated that she was a close friend of the accused and were involved in sexual intercourse for the name of love. Nevertheless, in the latter of her statement, she demanded that the accused was blackmailing her in conformity with some obscene photographs he had clicked of her.
In her affirmation recorded under Section 164 CrPC, the prosecutrix said that on September 9, 2020, the applicant had contacted her telephonically, and taken her on his motorcycle to a room, where he committed rape on her. The confession of the informant (the victim’s father) was also recorded under Section 161 of CrPC.
In front of the High Court, counsel for the applicant argued that his client was falsely incriminated in the case and had not committed any offense. It was argued that consistent with the statement of the prosecutrix, no sexual relations had taken place between the two on September 9.
The council dismissed the claim about his client’s keeping of indecent photographs of the prosecutrix as being part of a false narrative. He notified the Court that when the police had grasped the applicant’s mobile phone, they had found only three photos of the girl which were not indecent.
Succeeding the hearing of the parties, the Court observed that there were material contradictions in the two statements made by the prosecutrix. Noting that the prosecutrix had confessed to having consensual sexual relations with the applicant and that she was in a position to know the consequences of sexual activity, the Court decided to grant bail.
