Ahmedabad: A sessions court acquitted a 22-year-old man of rape after finding contradictions in the complainant’s testimony. Making a sharply worded observation about the 43-year-old complainant’s conduct, the court said that she appeared to be “habituated to casual consensual sexual intercourse with multiple males”.The remark stemmed from medical and DNA evidence which, according to the court, indicated that the complainant had concealed a sexual encounter with an unidentified man on the same night she alleged that she was gang-raped.In July 2022, a 44-year-old woman approached Khokhra police alleging that her 22-year-old neighbour and a juvenile abducted her on a two-wheeler on the pretext of dropping her off at home and took her near the Maninagar railway tracks, where they allegedly assaulted and raped her. She claimed the duo later met her again, offered her a lift, and dropped her near Jadeja’s Corner crossroads, where she spent the night before lodging a complaint the next morning.Police filed a chargesheet, while the juvenile’s case was sent to the Juvenile Justice Board. During trial, the 22-year-old alleged that the woman had falsely implicated him in the case following a financial dispute between the families.After the trial, the court noted “material improvisations, exaggerations, omissions, and contradictions of facts” on the part of the complainant, who did not accuse the juvenile during her deposition.The court did not believe her claim regarding forcible sexual intercourse near the railway tracks. Her claim that the accused dropped her home was also dismissed by the court as false.However, it was the DNA analysis that revealed more than what the woman had alleged. It completely exonerated the juvenile.Besides Rana’s DNA, an unknown man’s DNA was also found on the complainant’s clothes.The court noted, “The said report is indicative of the fact that after the alleged rape upon PW1 by accused, PW1/prosecutrix has not slept on the porch of a shop near Khokhar Police Station, but went on to enter into a sexual intercourse with someone else also, and the said factum is concealed by her from the police, giving rise to a possibility that PW1, a lady of 43 years, is habituated to casual consensual sexual intercourse with multiple males.”The court concluded that the abrasion and laceration found on her private parts might have been the result of the sexual intercourse with the unknown man.The court also said, “This court is of the view that the possibility of consensual sexual intercourse of PW1 with the accused, and thereafter, false implication of the accused by her to settle scores with the accused’s father could not be ruled out herein.”
