In a relief to Bollywood actor Shiney Ahuja, the Bombay high court finally took up his appeal against his conviction in the rape case for final hearing. The actor had, last year, made an application in the court, requesting it to hear his appeal, as he was not getting job offers because of his conviction.
Ahuja’s basic contention is that the trial judge erred in convicting him because the complainant herself had retracted her statement claiming that she was not raped and her complaint against the actor was false.
Justice Abhay Thipsay took up Ahuja’s matter for hearing on January 8 and posted the matter for further hearing on January 22 after listening to arguments briefly.
Advocate Ashok Mundargi and Manoj Mohite, on behalf of Ahuja, had argued that the trial court had wrongly convicted Ahuja.
Apart from complainant turning hostile, the actor’s lawyers also argued that prosecution had relied on DNA and forensic tests, which had been full of infirmities. Mr Mundergi said he would go into the details of the infirmities at a later stage of arguments. The actor pleaded that the police had failed to seek the phone call data record of the maid, which, he said, would prove that the allegations against him were “wrong”.
It was also argued that the police did not rely on CCTV footage that supported his claim and the findings of the trial court were “contradictory and inconclusive”.
The defence also claimed that the police was biased against the actor, which it said was evident from investigating officer’s cross-examination.
It was pointed out that the officer had said that he did not feel it necessary to investigate the CDR or the CCTV footage.
The actor’s appeal said the chain of custody of swabs, which is vital to a DNA test report in a criminal trial, was not followed. Moreover, a witness had stated, “there was no record of taking or giving seal” for the swab vial and the report on a swab in which no DNA was found had “disappeared”.
Shiney was convicted in March 2011 by a Mumbai fast-track court, which sentenced him to seven-and-a-half years term in jail for allegedly raping his maid at his home in 2009.
