Man acquitted of rape charge as woman makes 529 calls before filing complaint

NEW DELHI: More than 500 calls made by a woman to a man after he allegedly raped her has led the Delhi high court to rubbish the claim.
The woman, a university professor, refused to undergo internal medical examination, and took a month to register the rape complaint against a man whom she reached out to on a social networking site.
Despite contradictions in her testimony, it was not until the accused was subjected to a full-fledged trial by a sessions court for two years that he was found innocent.
A bench of Justice Manmohan and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal has now confirmed the man’s acquittal and noted that the woman’s testimony “is unreliable and inspires no confidence and there are compelling reasons for rejecting her testimony”.
On her allegations that she was raped under the influence of a drug given to her by the man, the HC has listed out several loopholes and noted that she “made 529 calls to the accused between 16th December, 2016 (after the date of rape) to 29th January, 2017 (before filing of the complaint). Her act of making so many repeated calls is not consistent with her allegations”.
While the academic alleged that she received an invitation to attend a seminar in December 2016 at IIM (Noida campus), the bench has pointed out that specific day was a gazetted holiday due to Milad un-Nabi.
In addition, the man produced an RTI reply sent by the IIM (Noida campus) where the institute confirmed that on account of the gazetted holiday, there was no seminar scheduled for the day as claimed by the professor and they had not sent any invitation to her.
In her appeal, she said she had been raped, arguing that the trial court ignored the fact that she has asthma, cannot do regular activities without medication, has a physical deformity in her left leg and is also suffering from cerebral palsy due to which it is difficult for her to raise her voice even in an emergency situation.
The complainant said that absence of consent means rape and the onus to prove otherwise is on the accused, but the HC has rejected the argument, saying it is valid only once it is proved there was a sexual contact, which wasn’t established since she refused medical test.
Why did woman take 20 days to file rape FIR, asks high court
The HC has found it strange that after she was raped in a hotel room, the woman didn’t raise an alarm though the hotel is manned by security guards 24 hours and no one can enter without the permission of the guards.
“She could have easily come out of the hotel room to make a call to the police or raise an alarm or could have requested any of the hotel staff to make a call. Prosecutrix is mobile and does not suffer from such a serious disability that she could not have raised an alarm,” the bench has highlighted.
It has also taken a dim view of the fact that after the alleged incident, she allowed the man to drop her to Shivaji Stadium Metro Station but waited for a month before lodging a rape complaint.
“There is a delay of 32 days in filing the FIR, according to the Trial Court or at least 20 days as admitted by the prosecutrix. According to her, there was a delay as her brother was abroad. But such an alibi on her part is difficult to accept as she is an educated lady who is gainfully employed as a Professor in a university,” the HC has observed, trashing her version as “highly unreliable, untrustworthy and inspires no confidence”.