Wedding fixed, woman seeks quashing of rape FIR; Bombay High Court rejects plea

The Bombay High court last month refused to quash and set aside proceedings of rape initiated by a woman against her ex-boyfriend. The woman had claimed that her wedding had been fixed and, hence, she didn't want to pursue the prosecution.

A division bench of justices Naresh Patil and AM Badar said, "We are of the considered opinion that the case in hand, which has progressed up to filing of the charge sheet after collecting all evidence in pursuant to the FIR lodged, involves serious offence of rape and other offences. Hence, we do not feel it expedient to invoke extra-ordinary jurisdiction of the court to quash the proceedings."

Besides, the victim's plea, the accused too had filed an affidavit giving consent for the quashing and saying that he would not raise any issue thereafter.

However, the prosecution opposed the plea on the grounds that it was a heinous crime and the charge sheet had been filed after due investigation.

As per the victim's complaint, she and the accused were colleagues at a firm in 2013. On return from work one day, the accused took the victim to a mall in Vashi and later took her to his house where he allegedly raped her.

Thereafter, on several occasions, on the pretext of marrying her, he allegedly sexually assaulted her and when she became pregnant, he forced her to go for an abortion. After this, he allegedly started ill-treating her and went back on his promise of marriage. She had then consumed poison and later lodged a case against him.

After going through the records, the court came to the conclusion that the offence was serious in nature and, hence, dismissed the woman's plea.