A Delhi court has sentenced a man to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment for raping his sister-in-law at his house last year. It also imposed a fine of ₹25,000 on him. The amount will be given to the victim on expiry of the appeal period.
The court relied on the victim’s testimony that her cousin’s husband had raped her on the night of March 26, 2016, and rejected the accused’s claim that he was falsely implicated by the victim.
“Ours is a conservative society and, therefore, a woman and more so a young unmarried woman will not put her reputation in peril by alleging falsely about forcible sexual assault,” Additional Sessions Judge Sanjiv Jain said in his judgment.
The court also observed that sexual assault brings feeling of disgust, humiliation, tremendous embarrassment, a sense of shame and trauma to the victim.
Victim’s statement
It relied on the victim’s statement that she had complained about the assault three days after the incident when the man once again came to rape her at her house as she was scared.
“Since the prosecutrix was scared of the accused and was alone in Delhi, she did not make the complaint. When the accused tried to repeat the incident, she called the police,” the judge said.
According to the prosecution, the victim had gone to her cousin’s house in New Friends Colony in south Delhi as her parents had gone to their native village. While she was sleeping in the house on March 26, 2016, her brother-in-law, a rickshaw puller, raped her.
The defence counsel sought leniency for the convict saying he had to support his family and had no criminal antecedents.
