Taking into account the plight of a young mother, cheated by her lover who reneged on marriage promise, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has ordered the man to pay a compensation of ₹ 3 lakh to the woman.
Justice J. Nisha Banu, invoking the power of the court under Section 357 (3) of the Code of Criminal procedure (Order to pay compensation), ordered that the compensation must be paid to the victim within four weeks. It must be deposited in a nationalised bank so that the Dalit woman and the child could take care of themselves, the court said.
The court observed that a young woman had fallen prey to the lust of a man under the garb of a love affair and she had become a mother. The child would face trauma and humiliation as a result of this. The conduct of the man could not be condoned by the court, the judge said and ordered the man to undergo one-year rigorous imprisonment as directed by a lower court.
The court was hearing the criminal appeal preferred by the man against a lower court order that had convicted him on the charges of cheating the woman. In his appeal, he contended that they were in a relationship by mutual consent and that he never promised to marry her.
The man is said to have pursued the woman from Kumbakonam in Thanjavur district and she had consented to a relationship on the promise that he would marry her. When the girl’s parents learnt that she was pregnant, they approached the man and asked her to marry her.
However, he is said to have asked them to talk to his uncle, the eldest in the family, about it.
But his uncle is said to have rejected the proposal outright. With the man not contesting the fact that the child was his and DNA test too proving the same, the court dismissed the criminal appeal preferred by him and directed the trial court to secure and commit him to undergo the remaining period of the sentence.
