New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Monday acquitted Mahmood Farooqui, co-director of Bollywood film ‘Peepli Live’, in a rape case involving a US researcher, saying he was entitled to benefit of the doubt as the testimony of the victim was not reliable. Justice Ashutosh Kumar not only discounted the version of the rape victim but also dwelt at length in his 85- page verdict on how the woman failed to communicate her denial of consent and why Farooqui might not have been conveyed her denial, if there was any.
The court underscored that a “no” may not always mean a “no” in acts of passion. “In an act of passion, actuated by libido, there could be myriad circumstances which can surround a consent and it may not necessarily always mean ‘yes’ in case of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in case of ‘no’,” HC judgment states, reports News 18. Such instances were not unknown where a feeble “no” may mean a “yes,” the judge noted. ‘‘When parties are known to each other, are persons of letters, and are intellectually and academically proficient, and if, in the past,
there have been physical contacts.
In such cases, it would be really difficult to decipher whether little or no resistance and a feeble “no”, was actually a denial of consent,”
said the judge. The judgment cites some unknown “recent studies” to further underscore that the normal rule is that the consent has to be given, and it cannot be assumed. But these studies reveal that, in reality most of the sexual interactions are based on non-verbal
communication to initiate and reciprocate consent, adds News 18.”At what point of time and for which particular move, the appellant did not have the consent of the prosecutrix is not known.
What is the truth of the matter is known to only two persons, namely, the appellant and the prosecutrix who have advanced their own theories/ versions,” said Justice Kumar. With this, Justice Kumar set aside the trial court order which had awarded a seven year
jail term to Farooqui after convicting him for the alleged rape of the 30-year-old researcher at his south Delhi residence in March 2015.
The High Court also directed that Farooqui, who is presently in jail, be released forthwith. Farooqui had challenged his conviction and the sentence handed out by the trial court. During arguments, Farooqui’s lawyer had denied the allegation of rape levelled by the woman and said “no such incident took place on that day”.
His counsel had referred to messages exchanged between his client and the woman before the case was lodged and contended that the two were in a “relationship” since January 2015. A trial court had on August 4 last year sent him to jail for seven years, observing that he had taken advantage of the situation when the victim was alone in his house. The police had on June 19, 2015, lodged the FIR against Farooqui on the woman’s complaint after which he was arrested. The woman was a research scholar from Columbia University.
