NEW DELHI: A man facing trial for allegedly attempting to rape his woman tenant has been acquitted by a Delhi court which observed that her testimony suffers from "embellishments and prevarications".
Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat also noted that the woman's statement was neither "credible nor trustworthy" as she had changed her version of the alleged incident during her testimonies. "Hence, I feel it totally unsafe and against the settled principles of criminal law to place any reliance upon the testimony of the prosecutrix (woman)," the judge said.
"She appears to be a prevaricate as she has described the incident differently in each of her statements and has been improving her version at each step," the court said while acquitting Delhi-resident Pushpender Kumar. According to police, Kumar, who was the landlord of the house where the complainant was residing along with her family, had attempted to rape her last October.
She had alleged in the court that on October 14, the accused came to her house when her husband was not present and assaulted her. She also claimed that he tried to rape her but she somehow manage to escape and came outside the room. During the trial, the accused told the court that he was falsely implicated as the woman had lodged the complaint at the instance of her husband to avoid paying rent to him.
He alleged the woman and her husband had neither paid rent nor electricity charges since they started residing in his house as tenant in September 2014. The court, after going through the evidence, acquitted the accused saying, "The evidence led by the prosecution is shaky and far from being credible or trustworthy. The testimony of the prosecutrix (woman) suffers from embellishments and prevarications. It does not inspire any confidence at all."
"No other evidence on record supports or lends assurance to her version. To the contrary, the evidence lead by the accused in his defence demonstrates that no such incident, as projected by the prosecution did take place," it said.
It also noted that version of police that the accused was drunk and had sexually assaulted the woman was not supported by his medical examination as the report nowhere mentioned that he was drunk at the time of alleged incident.