HC: Rape plaint delay doesn’t mean victim is lying

Mumbai: Upholding the conviction of four men for gang-rape, the Bombay high court has held that a delay in lodging a police complaint does not mean the victim is lying.

Justice A.M. Badar dismissed the appeals of Dattatraya Korde (31), Ganesh alias Manoj Pardeshi (33), Pintu Khoskar (25) and Ganesh Zole (20) challenging their conviction by a trial court in Nashik.

The contended they had been falsely implicated in the case. They claimed there were contradictions in witness statements and there was a delay in lodging the First Information Report (FIR).

The prosecution case is that on March 15, 2012, the victim went to the Trimbakeshwar temple with a co-worker. After which, they visited a nearby place, Brahmagiri, where they stopped for lunch around 2:30 pm. The accused, who reached there, beat up the two. Three of them dragged the woman to a bush and raped her. The accused also looted their belongings and issued threats against revealing the incident to anybody.

The defence argued the FIR was lodged after two days proving it was a false complaint. However, the judge held that the reluctance to go to the police can be because of the society’s attitude towards such victims.

It was already on record that the victim had been deserted by her spouse and had two children to look after. “In such a situation, a delay of two days in lodging the report is not at all fatal to the prosecution case,” the judge observed while upholding the conviction and sentence of 10 years jail each.