Delhi HC upholds man's acquittal in case of raping minor wife
New Delhi, Aug 22: The Delhi High Court has refused to entertain the State's appeal against a man's acquittal in a case of raping his 15-year-old wife, saying his physical relationship with her cannot be termed as rape.
The high court upheld a trial court's judgement which had declared the Muslim man not guilty of raping his second wife, saying he has been rightly acquitted.
"The additional sessions judge had rightly observed that in view of the testimony of the child that she got married to the respondent (man) in the month of December, 2014 and only thereafter did they have physical relationship, no offence under Section 6 read with Section 5(1) of POCSO Act was made out and the respondent was rightly acquitted," a bench of Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Neena Bansal Krishna said.
The high court said there was no ground for grant of leave to appeal against the trial court's verdict and dismissed an application filed by the police.
"We find that since the child victim was the wife who was almost fifteen years of age, the physical relationship of the respondent with the victim, cannot be termed as rape. The respondent has been rightly acquitted," the bench said.
Under the exception given in Section 375 (rape) of the IPC, sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his wife, the wife not being under 15 years, is not rape.
According to the prosecution, a rape case was lodged against the man in 2015 on the complaint of the girl's mother after finding out that her minor daughter was pregnant.
The girl, in her testimony before the trial court, submitted that the man who was her brother-in-law had married her in December 2014 after which he established physical relations with her with her consent and she became pregnant.
She said the fact that she had got married to the man was not known to her mother, who lodged a complaint with the police on discovering that she was pregnant.
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Confident we are going to win Kerala: Shashi Tharoor
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday expressed confidence in the victory of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala, saying the Congress-led alliance will win more than 75 seats out of the total 140 in the state.
Tharoor, who hails from Kerala, said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls, most of which predicted a victory for the UDF that has been out of power for 10 years in the state.
"We have been on the ground. I have campaigned in 59 constituencies across 12 districts out of 14. I was very confident we are going to win.
"Everything that I have picked up from not just my party colleagues and workers but also from other observers, media and others have always convinced me that we were going to score a comfortable win of above 75 seats. And all the (exit) polls have confirmed the same thing," he told reporters here.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls but in general he was not a big fan of exit polls in India.
"Because ours is not purely a homogenous society. We have to take into account gender issue, caste issue, class issue, regional disparities. You never get a convincingly large enough sample to give an accurate poll and now there is the additional complication that we have heard about in West Bengal this year that many people are unwilling to answer the questions of the pollsters," he said.
The Congress leader said normally, it used to be below 10 per cent that people said that they would not answer.
"Even if you are a reputable exit pollster, in Bengal, one polling company has said 60 per cent of people refused to answer. So, what is the worth of a poll where 60 per cent of your respondents have not answered," he said.
Several exit polls on Wednesday predicted a comeback by the Congress-led UDF in Kerala after 10 years, dethroning the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF).
Polling for the 140-member Kerala assembly was held on April 9. Results of assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Puducherry, besides Kerala, will be announced on May 4.
