NEW DELHI: A Delhi court has ordered perjury proceedings against a woman for allegedly filing a false rape case against a man who was acquitted of the charges as the complainant failed to identify him as the accused.
Additional Sessions Judge Nivedita Anil Sharma freed Delhi resident Deepak Malhotra of charges of rape and destruction of evidence under IPC, observing that the prosecution's claim was not reliable and believable and it has failed to establish that he had raped the woman.
"It is clear from the evidence of the prosecutrix that she has not identified accused Malhotra as the culprit by withholding the truth from the court and deposing that she had never seen the accused prior to the date of her evidence...," the court said.
It said the facts make it clear that the woman, despite knowing that the accused is not the same man who committed the offence against her, still "falsely implicated" him in the case of very serious nature and pursued it by opposing his bail application.
"She has also levelled false allegations of her being intoxicated prior to the offence of rape and this fact is borne out from the FSL report..." the judge said.
The court said as the woman has committed perjury and other offences which she has admitted, "I deem this to be a fit case for making a court complaint against the prosecutrix under section 195 CrPC to the court of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM), Delhi for prosecution of the prosecutrix for perjury and other offences".
The judge authorised the court staff to make the complaint before the CMM against the woman.
According to the prosecution, the woman had filed a case against Malhotra at Paschim Vihar Police Station here alleging that after seeing an advertisement, she had gone to his godown in Jawala Heri market on July 1, this year and he raped her.
She alleged the man gave her intoxicated water due to which she became unconscious and he raped her. After raping her, he destroyed the bed sheet to cause disappearance of evidence, she said.
The woman, however, in her deposition before the court failed to identify the man, saying he was not the same person who had raped her.
The court noted, "The prosecutrix has not deposed an iota of evidence of her being raped at all by accused Malhotra. She has not even identified accused in her evidence nor has deposed anything incriminating against the accused."
It also observed that there is a public outrage and a hue and cry is being raised everywhere that courts are not convicting the rape accused.
"However, no man, accused of rape, can be convicted if the witnesses do not support the prosecution case or give quality evidence, as in the present case where the prosecutrix is hostile regarding the identity of the culprit," it said.
The judge said that it should not be ignored that the court has to confine itself to the ambit of law and contents of the file as well as the testimonies of the witnesses and is not to be swayed by emotions or reporting in the media.