“The story of the prosecution put forward in the trial court looks to be highly improbable. The defence version is probable,” the HC said. “The story of the prosecution put forward in the trial court looks to be highly improbable. The defence version is probable,” the HC said.

Dismissing a plea by the Chandigarh Administration for grant of leave to appeal against the acquittal of an accused in a 2015 gangrape case, the Punjab and Haryana High Court said since there was no injury on the person of the prosecutrix, it can be inferred that she was a consenting party to the sexual intercourse.

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“We are of the view that the prosecutrix in this case was neither kidnapped nor abducted. The story of the prosecution put forward in the trial court looks to be highly improbable. The defence version is probable,” said the division bench of Justices Jaswant Singh and Lalit Batra in a verdict, while upholding the trial court decision.

“The doctor did not find any injury on the person of the prosecutrix, from which, it can be inferred that she was a consenting party to the sexual intercourse. There is no corroborative evidence to the testimony of the prosecutrix that she was victim of rape. Her testimony had not stood the test of credence and in these circumstances, we inclined to extend the benefit of doubt to the respondents,” the division bench said.

In the complaint filed with the police, the complainant had claimed that his daughter went to attend a ‘Jagran’ on the night of October 30 in 2015 but did not return till next morning. It was alleged that four boys — Amit, Suraj, Kannu and Vikas had abducted her in a car. While a case of gangrape was registered against the accused persons. During the trial, Amit told the court that he was falsely implicated in the case by the girl’s parents as there was a “love affair” between them.

In January 2017, the accused were acquitted of the charges framed against them by trial court. The prosecutrix was around 18-year-old at the time of registration of the case by her father. UT Administration’s application for leave to appeal against acquittal of three other accused, other than Amit, was dismissed by the High Court in 2018.

The division bench while declining the Administration’s plea for grant of leave to appeal the acquittal of Amit said, “It is not established by the prosecution that how from assembly/crowd of ‘Jagran’, the accused could manage to abduct her. It is not the case of prosecution that ‘Jagran’ was concluded at around 11/12 pm. As such, the prosecutrix was supposed to sit in the gathering of ‘Jagran’ till its conclusion. It is not cleared by the prosecutrix how she came in the company of the accused and how the accused branded a knife on her in order to abduct her”.

Observing that the prosecutrix has testified that she was kept confined in a ‘Jhuggi’ for two days, the court said that she should have been first to raise hue and cry if she was wrongly confined. “It is not the case of prosecution that prosecutrix was given any intoxicant, by virtue of which, she lost her senses for two days and was not in a position to raise noise. Therefore, in the absence of any intoxication, the prosecutrix was able to raise hue and cry in case she kept confined forcibly in the house … for two days,” read the judgement.

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