Delhi court gives man seven years RI for raping woman

"The Courts are alive to the social realities of Indian society where the women find it very difficult to come out of the closet and report such matters to police for fear of humiliation, a Delhi court said while convicting a man to seven years of imprisonment for raping a woman.

An FIR was registered on November 26, 2014 by the victim aged 20 that she was raped by the convict on pretext of getting her husband released from jail. The victim's husband was in jail in connection with a theft case.

"It is not hard to imagine the pitiable plight of a woman who is burdened with responsibility of running the household with two minor daughters. When such a woman is raped, she will take more than usual time to come to terms with the mental and physical trauma before gathering courage to fight out the accused. It is quite difficult for a woman to broach such a topic with anyone, be it her husband or her parents," the court said.

Additional Sessions Judge Sanjiv Jain also imposed a fine of Rs 15,000 on the convict failing which he would have to undergo simple imprisonment for six months.The court made the observations while deciding whether the delay in registering the case is not fatal in the judgment.

On November 20, 2014, the accused told the victim to accompany him to Saket court for her husband's case. But there was no date of hearing on that date. Thereafter he took her to a room on the false assurance of making her meet a lawyer. Following this he committed rape on the victim and threatened her of dire consequences if she disclosed the incident to anyone.

Two to three days later he again told the victim to come along to Tihar Jail to meet her husband but by the time they reached, the husband was already gone. The victim smelt it fishy when the accused started taking her from the same. She somehow escaped from him and came home.

The accused denied all the allegations stating that he was falsely implicated.

The court, however, said that there were no inconsistencies of the victim thereby adding that rape is the worst form of woman's oppression.

"A forcible sexual assault brings in humiliation, feeling of disgust, tremendous embarrassment, sense of shame, trauma and lifelong emotional scar to a victim. The stigma that attaches to the victim of rape in Indian society ordinarily rules out the leveling of false accusations," the court said while citing another judgment.

The court also directed the Delhi State Legal Service Authority (DSLA) to compensate the victim under relevant sections of the law.