The Delhi High Court on Tuesday ruled that a woman’s consent to be in a man’s company “regardless of for how long” cannot ever be interpreted as consent to a sexual connection.
The HC made the observations while denying bail to a man accused of raping a Czech national by pretending to be a ‘spiritual guru’ who would help her perform the post-demise rituals of her deceased husband.
The single-judge Bench of Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani said, “Merely because a prosecutrix consents to being in the company of a man, regardless for how long, it can never be the basis to infer that she had also consented to sexual liaison with the man.”
The allegation was that the accused sexually assaulted the woman on October 12, 2019 in a hostel in Delhi, and then engaged in physical interaction with her on January 31, 2020 in Prayagraj and on February 7, 2020 in a hotel in Gaya (Bihar).
It was argued that the FIR was filed much after the incidents in Delhi and that the prosecutor did not file any complaints or made any effort to file FIRs in other locations where she was allegedly sexually assaulted.
In response to this court said, “The delay in registration of the FIR has been sought to be explained on the same basis, viz. the prosecutrix’s emotionally vulnerable state, as also the fact that she was in alien places and environments where she was fearful of consequences if she made a police complaint.”
It was argued that mere delay in FIR registration is never fatal and that the petitioner is a deceptive individual who posed as a spiritual guru. It was also argued that the accused “played on the prosecutor’s vulnerabilities” following her husband’s unexpected death, which gave him an “element of power” over her, which he exploited shamelessly.
The court said that she became dependent on the petitioner to help her put an end to the trauma she had experienced because she was a foreign person and was unfamiliar with Hindu rites and ceremonies.
“Though it is true that the travel to the aforementioned places happened over a period of almost 4 months, and it is nowhere specifically alleged that the petitioner held the prosecutrix ‘hostage’ or that she was made to travel with him by use of physical force or restraint, in the opinion of this court, that alone would not be determinative of the state of the prosecutrix’s mind, for the court to be able to say at this stage that the alleged sexual liaisons were consensual,” the court observed.
The court denied the petitioner’s request for normal bail, but permitted him to reapply for the same relief before the trial court once all prosecution witnesses have been deposed.
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