A 20-year old youth, accused of raping an NRI woman settled in UK on the pretext of marrying her, has been granted anticipatory bail by a court, which said physical relations between them "does not appear to be prima facie non-consensual".
A 20-year old youth, accused of raping an NRI woman settled in UK on the pretext of marrying her, has been granted anticipatory bail by a court, which said physical relations between them "does not appear to be prima facie non-consensual".
District Judge Anu Malhotra granted anticipatory bail to 20-year-old Pankaj Sindhi, the son of a wedding band owner in Rajouri Garden are of West Delhi, on furnishing a bail bond of Rs one lakh with two sureties of like amount.
The 35-year-old woman has accused the youth of raping her from September 2013 to November 2014 on the false promise of marrying her. She also alleged that she got pregnant and the youth had asked her to get an abortion done.
Advocate Anil Kumar Sharma, who appeared for Pankaj, contended that the woman had been a consenting party for years together in establishing physical relations with the youth and it could not be said that she was raped.
The court, in its 26-page order, said that despite the fact that the youth compelled the woman to get the child aborted, she continued to have physical relations with him.
"...the relationship between the prosecutrix and applicant (Pankaj) as per averments on the documents on record, does not appear to be prima facie non-consensual," the judge said.
"Taking into account the totality of circumstances of the case without any observations on the merits and demerits of the case, the applicant is allowed to be released on anticipatory bail in the event of arrest," the court said.
It imposed several conditions on him including that he should not leave the country without permission and neither intimidate the witnesses nor tamper with evidence.
While allowing Pankaj's bail plea, the court also noted that the complainant was a highly educated woman and, in her complaint to the DCP, she was aware of alleged flirting by the youth and had spent several days and nights with him in hotels.
According to the FIR, the woman, a resident of United Kingdom, had met the youth in 2013 as her mother had taken on lease the hotel of the accused's father in Karol Bagh as she used to visited her mother in Delhi quite often for their hotel business.
The woman and the youth got acquainted and established physical relations after the youth promised to marry her, she had alleged, adding that after sometime she went back to UK and came to know that she was pregnant.
The woman, in her FIR, had said that she informed the youth about her pregnancy and he asked her to get it aborted while assuring her that he would marry her once he becomes financially stable.
The woman had said that whenever she used to come to India, the youth met her in a hotel and established physical relations with her on the promise of marriage.
She alleged that the youth and his father kept on delaying their marriage and later on Pankaj refused to marry her.
The defence counsel had claimed that he woman had demanded Rs two lakh from the youth and when he failed to pay the money, she lodged the false case against him.
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