: A court here has discharged a man of the charge of allegedly sexually assaulting a woman, saying that there was a delay of six years on the part of the victim in lodging a case against him.
According to the complaint lodged in May, the accused had raped the woman, a mother of two, at her house by making her consume a beverage laced with a sedative in 2010.
‘Implicated’
The accused said in his defence that he knew the victim and had helped her financially as she had issues with her husband.
When he asked her to return the money, she implicated him in the case, the accused added.
‘No justification’
Discharging the accused, Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Kumar said: “No complaint was lodged by the woman till May 27, though she was allegedly raped by the accused for the first time on June 16, 2010. As per the prosecutrix, she was raped for the last time on May 21. There is no valid justification for delay in lodging the FIR.”
“The delay of one or two days in lodging an FIR may be bona fide, reasonable and justified in the facts and circumstances of a case.”
However, in the present case there was a delay of more than six years in lodging an FIR,” the judge further said.
Claim quashed
The court also rejected a claim made by the woman that the accused had been threatening and blackmailing her with their obscene videos, saying no such videos were recovered by the police during investigation.
