THANE: A Thane court has acquitted a 44- year-old man working as a private tutor of charges of raping a woman in 2017.
District and Additional Sessions Judge A S Pandharikar in his order on December 9 said the prosecution failed to prove the charges against the accused beyond reasonable doubt, hence he needs to be acquitted.
The prosecution told the court that the victim, a housewife in her 20s, had shifted from Jalgaon to her brother-in-law's house at Kalwa here in Maharashtra two months prior to the incident as her husband did not have a job.
She used to take her brother-in-law's four-year-old daughter for tuition classes to the accused's place.
On August 12, 2017, when she went to the house of the accused to get the child, he asked her to wait.
After all the other children left, the accused asked the woman to prepare tea for him.
When she expressed her inability, the accused dragged her into the kitchen and allegedly raped her, the prosecution told the court.
In his order, the judge said the theory put forth by the prosecutionseemstobeunbelievableas the victim was shoutingforhelp and the incident spot iscrowded.
"Insuch circumstances, it is unbelievable that no one heard the noise...the manner in which the occurrence is stated is not believable," he said.
"Therefore,based on the facts and circumstances of the case, the solitary version of the prosecution cannot be taken asa gospeltruthatfacevalue," he said.
In the absence of any supporting evidence, there is no scopetocome to the conclusion that the prosecution has succeededinestablishingitscase, the judge said.
It will not be out of place to mention here that the forensicscience laboratory'sreport (in the case) is negative, he added.