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dna special: Woman's body is not a plaything, says Supreme Court

Apex court says rape on the pretext of marriage deserves harsh punishment.

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A woman’s body is not a man’s plaything and he cannot take advantage of it in order to satisfy his lust and desires by fooling a woman into consenting to sexual intercourse simply because he wants to indulge in it, the Supreme Court said while awarding life imprisonment to an accused.

A bench of justice Gopala Gowda ruled, “We hold that the trial court was correct in awarding the maximum sentence of life imprisonment to the accused as he has committed a breach of the trust that the prosecutrix had in him, especially due to the fact that they were related to each other.

He thus invaded her person, by indulging in sexual intercourse with her, in order to appease his lust, all the time knowing that he would not marry her. He committed an act of brazen fraud leading her to believe that he would marry her.”

“The accused in this case has committed the vile act of rape and deserves to be suitably punished for it,” the court said.

The court’s ruling came on an appeal filed by UP Police against Allahabad High Court that had acquitted Naushad from the rape charges in 2004.

The accused — Naushad was the son of the maternal uncle of the girl. The parents came to know about their relationship when the daughter narrated to her mother how she was raped and was got pregnant.

The complainant along with his wife went to complain to the parents of the accused and explained the situation. The trial court then sentenced him to life imprisonment.

The court while going through the girl’s statement came to the conclusion that the alleged consent is said to have obtained by the accused was not voluntary consent and said, “The accused indulged in sexual intercourse with the girl by misconstruing to her his true intentions. It is apparent from the evidence that the accused only wanted to indulge in sexual intercourse within her and was under no intention of actually marrying the girl.”

Naushad is thus guilty of rape as defined under Section 375 of the IPC and is liable to be punished for the offence under Section 376 of the IPC.

“He brazenly raped her for two years or more giving her the false assurance that he would marry her, and as a consequence she became pregnant,” the court ruled.

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