Love story gone wrong: SC gives protection from arrest to a man facing rape allegations from ex-wife

The love story of Paras and a Muslim woman has gone sour. The woman divorced her husband in July 2019, and filed an FIR in April 2023, alleging he had attempted to push her into prostitution, raped her, and also blackmailed her with objectionable pictures. The Supreme Court issued an order protecting him from arrest and also issued notice on his plea seeking anticipatory bail. Reports ETV Bharat's Sumit Saxena

New Delhi: Four years ago, 29-year-old Paras alias Parvez fell in love with a Muslim woman. He overlooked her credentials, allegedly an active sex worker, and converted his religion from Hindu to Islam, and married her, as per Muslim rituals and rites in April 2019. The couple, due to a threat from the parents of the woman, moved the Rajasthan High Court in April 2019, seeking protection and in May, the High Court granted them protection.

However, the love story has gone sour, the woman divorced her husband in July 2019, and filed an FIR in April 2023, alleging he had attempted to push her into prostitution, raped her, and also blackmailed her with objectionable pictures. Paras ran from pillar to post seeking relief, finally, the Supreme Court issued an order protecting him from arrest and also issued notice on his plea seeking anticipatory bail.

A bench comprising justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia, in an order on September 15, said: “Issue notice to the respondents. In the meantime, the petitioner be not arrested but shall cooperate with the investigation”.

Advocate Namit Saxena, representing Paras before the apex court, argued that the FIR dated April 26, 2023, alleges that the incident occurred between April 22, 2019, and March 29, 2023, but during the same period, she filed a plea before the Rajasthan High Court seeking protection from her own family as the marriage was against their wishes.

Saxena contended that his client married the complainant overlooking her credentials of being an active sex worker, however she did not change ways even after marriage and continued the same lifestyle, which led to estrangement between the couple and the complainant started extorting money from the petitioner at one pretext or the other. In June 2023, the trial court dismissed Paras’s plea seeking anticipatory bail. Similarly, Rajasthan High Court in July junked his anticipatory bail plea. Paras moved the apex court against the HC order.

Paras contended before the apex court that the FIR filed by the complainant was an outcome of an afterthought in order to make him look guilty for a crime he had not committed and she had made very vague and general allegations.

“There is a considerable delay of 4 years in lodging this FIR and the contents of the same reveal admission of marriage between the couple and conversion from Hinduism to Islam by the petitioner solely to marry……the FIR has been filed only to harass the petitioner and extort money from him”, said the plea.

The plea said: “The High Court failed to appreciate that the complainant has wrongfully stated in the FIR that the petitioner dragged her in prostitution……High Court failed to appreciate that the ingredients in order to implicate the petitioner under the sections mentioned in the FIR have not been fulfilled and prima facie, there is no guilt attributed to the petitioner which might prove the case of the complainant”.

The plea stressed that no person or any witness could be brought on record either by the complainant or the prosecution which might prove the petitioner committed the crime as alleged in the FIR.