New Delhi, Jul 30 A Delhi court has discharged a man accused of establishing sexual relations with a woman on the false promise of marriage, saying that the essential ingredients of the offence were not made out and the prosecution failed to raise a grave suspicion against him.
Additional Sessions Judge Shreya Arora Mehta was hearing a case registered at the Burari police station under provisions relating to sexual intercourse by deceitful means and non-appearance in response to a proclamation.
The accused was represented by advocate Abhimanyu Kumar of Tripaksha Litigation, who argued that the prosecution's own record was self-destructive on the essential ingredients of the alleged offence.
In an order dated July 29, the court said, “The prosecutrix has given three materially contradictory and mutually destructive versions on the most essential ingredient of the offence i.e. the timing and existence of the alleged promise of marriage vis-à-vis the first physical relationship.”
According to the FIR, the woman alleged that the accused promised to marry her before establishing physical relations. However, in her statement before a magistrate, she stated that the promise was made only after the physical relationship and after she threatened to lodge a complaint, the court noted.
“There is no independent corroborative evidence of any false promise of marriage. The statements of the common friend and the hotel manager do not support the prosecution's theory. The mother of the prosecutrix has not been examined,” the court said.
The court noted that the prosecutrix was a major, educated and law undergraduate who continued the relationship voluntarily over an extended period.
“The material contradictions in the prosecutrix's own statements are not trivial or peripheral; they strike at the very foundation of the offence under Section 69 BNS and are of such a nature that even if the entire prosecution case is taken at face value, no grave suspicion arises against the accused to warrant framing of charge,” the court said.
Holding that proceeding with the trial would amount to an abuse of the process of law, the court said, closing the proclamation proceedings against him.
