New Delhi: The Supreme Court has granted bail to a Muslim man who was arrested on charges of raping a Hindu minor girl with whom he was in a live-in relationship, while citing the couple's application for protection as an inter-faith couple and the fact that the applicant had already spent nine months in prison.
The couple from Rajasthan's Ajmer have entered into a live-in-relationship and have formalised it through an agreement dated August 25, 2022. In the same month, they went to register their wedding through a local court. The family of the minor girl traced the couple to the court prompting the couple to flee and seek police protection which was consequently granted by an order of Rajasthan High Court.
The girl's family somehow managed to convince her to walk out on him and had a police complaint filed against him. Police recorded her statement and arrested her estranged man on Oct. 31, 2022 on charges of rape and under section 3/4 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The man was charge sheeted and remained behind bars for about nine months.
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A bench comprising justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia, in an order passed on July 5, said: “Three factors weigh with us. The live-in-relationship agreement of Aug. 25, 2022, the parties filing a joint petition for police protection specially as an interfaith couple and the petitioner has already been in custody for about nine months”.
Advocate Namit Saxena, representing the petitioner Imamudin, contended before the court that it is a false case and his client was in a consensual relation with the girl. It was alleged that the petitioner took the victim to a hotel and forced her to have sexual intercourse with him.
Saxena argued that there was no CCTV footage found in the hotel, where it was alleged that he took the respondent and forced her to have sexual intercourse with him. After hearing arguments, the top court said: “In view of the aforesaid facts and circumstances, we grant bail to the appellant on terms and conditions to the satisfaction of the Trial Court. The criminal appeal stands disposed of." '
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"Because the Petitioner and the Respondent were in a live-in-relationship which could be proved by the agreement executed by them dated 25.08.2022 that both were inter-caste and the family of the respondent were against this union, that the petitioner out of threat from her family changed her statement during the interrogation. That the present case is instituted against the petitioner and his family to bend to the wants and needs of the family of the Respondent," the plea filed by Imamudin read.
Opposing the bail to Imamudin, the Rajasthan government, in its counter-affidavit, said a woman’s body is not a man’s plaything and he cannot take advantage of it in order to satisfy his lust and desires by fooling a woman into consenting to sexual intercourse simply because he wants to indulge in it. “The accused in this case has committed the vile act of rape and deserves to be suitably punished for it and this Special Leave Petition is liable to be dismissed...” it argued.
Saxena submitted that the girl with her own consent went to the Kishangarh Court to register their their marriage and the allegation of forcefully marrying her without her own will are just mere accusations against the petitioner and an afterthought.
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The state government argued that in the present case, the accused had sexual intercourse with the complainant by giving sedatives mixed in the tea. “Thus, the alleged consent said to have been obtained by the accused was not voluntary consent and that the accused got indulged in sexual intercourse with the prosecutrix by misconstruing to her his true intentions”, it said. The petitioner had moved the apex court challenging the Rajasthan High Court order passed on April 25, 2023, dismissing his bail application.
