NEW DELHI:The Supreme Court on Tuesday posed a question whether the Suryanelli case victim didn’t get any chance to escape from the accused.
A Bench headed by Justice Deepak Mishra asked the question while considering a bunch of petitions filed by those who were convicted in the case, including the main accused Dharmarajan.
“Even when the girl had chances to escape, why didn’t she use that? When she was forcefully taken to several places, she could have expressed her resentment. But nothing of that sort is seen to have happened.
Under these circumstances it has to be suspected whether the girl went with the accused according to her own willingness,” the court observed while declining immediate bail to the accused and posted the case for hearing in March 2016.
The Kerala High Court had also asked the same question while considering the case earlier.
The accused, including Dharmarajan, had approached the Supreme Court challenging the High Court verdict. The accused had mentioned in the bail petition that they had not raped the girl but only had consensual sex with her.
“The girl had changed her statement several times during the trial and hence her statements are not credible,” the accused had pointed out.
There were 36 people who faced trial in the 18-year-old case, of which five died during the trial. Seven were acquitted.