CHENNAI: A Delhi court’s judgment on Monday in the case of an alleged rape, filed by a 30-year-old doctor distinctly points out how the lower courts in the country are engaging in a process to get men out of the stigma of being falsely implicated as sexual predators—by defining rape, assault, betrayal and consent—in a way the country has never seen before.
The court, on Monday, acquitted a man of the charges of raping and threatening the woman, saying that physical relations between the two were consensual and the woman was ‘mature’ enough to understand what was happening.
“Facts and circumstances show their physical relations were consensual and consent given by the woman was not under a misconception of fact,” Additional Sessions Judge Sanjiv Jain said.
In an attempt to address the ingrained practices that add to the victimisation of women in the country, the courts are evolving their strategies by identifying and defining false allegations of rape, categorically. The rationalised approach of courts at addressing the loopholes in the Indian rape laws is also an attempt to take an objective view in such cases.
For instance, the rape cases brought to trial in Delhi can be divided into five categories— consensus sex criminalised by parents, rape allegations after breach of promise to marry, acquaintance rape, rape under trafficking and prostitution, stranger rape.
However, as per the data released by the DCW)in 2014, 53.2% of rape cases filed between April 2013 and July 2014 were proven false.