New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has upheld the seven-year jail term awarded by a trial court to a man for raping his neighbour and threatening to kill her minor son. Justice S Muralidhar dismissed the plea of Amar Singh, a resident of Pahar Ganj in Central Delhi, who claimed he was falsely implicated by the victim due to his objection to the presence of three men in her house on the day of the alleged incident.
"It does appear that Singh was upset with the victim for whatever reason and subjected her to sexual intercourse without her consent. In the presence of her son, it is unlikely that she would have consented to an act of sexual intercourse by him.
"Additionally, the fact that the vaginal swab of the victim showed the presence of semen coupled with the failure of the appellant to give his semen sample, proves beyond reasonable doubt that she was raped by him," the court said. The high court, however, acquitted him of the offence of trespass, giving him the benefit of doubt.
Singh, who is said to have married thrice, had challenged the September 27, 2013 order of the trial court that held him guilty of rape, house trespass and criminal intimidation and had also slapped a fine of Rs 7,500.
The court relied on the Supreme Court ruling that "submission of the body under the fear of terror cannot be construed as a consented sexual act... whether there was consent or not, is to be ascertained only on a careful study of all relevant circumstances".
One of Singh's three "wives" had also deposed in the trial court that prior to the incident, she was told by neighbours that the victim used to come to her house in her absence and would spend time with him. The trial court, however, had noted that whatever Singh's wife had said was "hearsay evidence" and could not be relied upon.
The ASJ had also junked Singh's defence that he knew the victim and they were in a live-in relationship few years ago and that the incident in question was not rape but consensual sex. The police had registered a case against him on May 1, 2012 on a complaint lodged by his neighbour alleging rape. The woman had told the court that on the night of April 30, 2012, Singh forcibly entered her house when her husband and three children had gone to their native village in Bihar and she was at home with her youngest son aged nine years.
When she asked him to go away, he beat her up and her minor son with a belt and also threatened to kill the child, the woman alleged. He then repeatedly raped her and spent the night in her house. When Singh left the next morning, the victim went out of the house crying and borrowed a mobile phone from a passerby and informed the police about the incident. The man from whom the victim had borrowed the mobile phone had also testified in court about the situation in which the woman had come out seeking help.
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