The Madras High Court has quashed a child rape case after the victim filed an affidavit stating that she married the accused in August 2012 on her volition by claiming to be a major and was living happily with him along with a baby born to them in September 2013.
Justice C.T. Selvam discharged the accused from the case after taking on file the affidavit in which the girl had contended that her matrimonial life would be doomed if her husband was sent to jail on the basis of a police complaint lodged by her mother in a state of emotion and haste.
The judge reversed an order passed by the Mahila Court in Chennai on November 24, 2014, refusing to discharge the accused from the case and set aside the charges under Section 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code as well as the provisions of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.
He pointed out that the victim’s affidavit revealed that she had lost her father when she was just three months old. Since her mother found it difficult to bring her up without any support, she was left in the custody of her maternal aunt. The girl fell in love with the accused and married him in 2012.
Claiming that the accused was the sole breadwinner of her family and that she loved him very much, the girl begged with the court to discharge her husband from the criminal case.
She also said that continuance of the rape case would cause grave prejudice to her as well as her one-and-a-half-year old child.
