An advocate, accused of raping a divorced woman, has been acquitted by a Delhi court, which observed that in many cases, women use law as a "weapon for vengeance" when consensual physical relations break.

Additional Sessions Judge Sanjiv Jain freed the accused of the charge of rape under section 376 of the IPC, saying the woman was "mature enough" and capable of giving consent.

"Many cases are being reported by those women who have consensual physical relationship but when the relationship breaks due to one or the other reason, the woman uses the law as a weapon for vengeance and personal vendetta.

"The physical relations between the prosecutrix and the accused were with the consent of the prosecutrix. I therefore acquit the accused of the offence punishable under section 376 of IPC," the judge said.

The court’s order came on the complaint of the woman, a divorcee, who had engaged the accused as her counsel in a road accident case. She had alleged that he had misbehaved with her in her house here and raped her.

"The prosecutrix at the time of incident was 38 years of age, quite matured and capable of giving consent. It is not the case that the accused made any false representation to the prosecutrix or elicited her consent to have physical relations with her giving some false promise.

"They knew each other for long time. The accused used to visit her house. They loved each other. When a quarrel took place between the woman and the accused…she made the complaint alleging rape, though their physical relations were consensual," the court said.

According to the prosecution, the woman, a resident of South Delhi’s Greater Kailash area, had separated from her husband over a decade ago.

Few years later, she met with an accident and engaged the accused as her counsel, it said, adding that he used to visit her house often since then.

In her complaint, the woman alleged she had warned the accused several times for misbehaving with her, but he did not budge. On December 28, 2013, he raped her and threatened that if she disclosed it, he would tell her son.

The accused, however, denied the allegations and claimed that the physical relations between them were consensual and the woman did not pay him his fees for handling her case.