Court acquits man after 11 years, orders FIR against woman for false rape case

Noida: A fasttrack court in Greater Noida acquitted a Dankaur resident of rape charges on Wednesday, 11 years after the FIR was filed, and ordered a criminal case to be registered against the complainant for filing a false case.

The court noted that the woman had “deliberately misused the rights granted to women by law”.Additional sessions judge Priyanka Singh acquitted Jaseant alias Yashwant of charges under IPC sections 376 (rape) and 452 (house trespass). In the same order, the court directed registration of a case against the complainant under Section 344 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.The Section enables sessions courts or magistrates of the first class to summarily try witnesses for giving or fabricating false evidence or perjury.“The FIR was registered on the basis of the complaint of the plaintiff, but when she appeared before the court as a witness, she did not support the facts of the FIR,” the court observed. The judge held that this contradiction made it “clear that the plaintiff has deliberately misused the rights granted to women by law” and that action against her was necessary.The woman, a tenant in the accused’s house in Dankaur, lodged an FIR on Oct 6, 2015, alleging that her landlord had barged into her room and raped her on the night of Sept 11.

She told police she tried to register a complaint the following morning but was turned away. After approaching the district magistrate on Sept 14, the accused was taken into custody but released four days later. He was formally charged and a chargesheet filed only in Nov 2015.

Charges were eventually framed in April 2023, seven years after the sessions court received the case.The prosecution’s case was weakened when the complainant took the stand and told the court the dispute was about rent dues.

She told the court that neighbours had gathered during the argument, and that she went to the police only to report the altercation, not to allege rape. “I am not literate, and I had simply put my thumb on the application which was written by one of my neighbours,” she testified.She also said her statement recorded before the magistrate under Section 164 CrPC was guided by neighbours. The prosecution declared her a hostile witness, but she maintained under cross-examination that she had neither made a false statement in court nor reached a compromise with the accused outside it.Medical evidence provided no support for the prosecution either. The examining doctor, appearing as a prosecution witness, told the court there were no internal or external injury marks and that no conclusive finding of rape could be made. A forensic science laboratory report was not on record.The court found that all five prosecution witnesses, including the complainant herself, failed to substantiate the charges.

In its judgment, the court underscored the weight that a victim’s own testimony carries in rape cases.“In a crime like rape, which is traumatic for a woman and shatters her social existence, there can be no stronger witness than the victim,” the court observed. “If the same witness does not support the prosecution’s case, it adversely affects the accused’s conviction and detracts from the prosecution’s case.”The court held that the prosecution failed to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt through “strong, cogent and reliable evidence” and acquitted the accused accordingly.The court held that the prosecution had failed to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt through “strong, cogent and reliable evidence” and acquitted the accused accordingly.