A woman’s body is not a man’s play thing,” Madhya Pradesh high court observed on Thursday as it dismissed a petition filed by man accused of raping a woman on the false promise of marriage.
A week ago, the HC had in a different case said that consent obtained for sex on the pretext of marriage is “not free consent” and police are justified in registering a case of rape. The court reiterated this on Thursday while hearing a petition filed by Bhopal resident Rajeev Sharma seeking quashing of rape charges filed against him by his former fiance.
Sharma had developed friendship with a dance teacher on Facebook and proposed marriage to her, which she accepted. The marriage was fixed though Sharma’s mother was opposed to it, say police. Her complaint says that he got her into a physical relationship by saying that she should not have any problem since they were going to marry. He went back on his promise, prompting her to lodge an FIR at Ashoka Garden police station on March 19, 2017, accusing him of rape.
It asked senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, representing Delhi Police, and lawyer A P Singh, counsel for the two convicts, to file their written submissions by next Tuesday.
The paramedic student was gangraped on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in South Delhi by a gang of six persons and severely assaulted before being thrown out on the road naked. She succumbed to her injuries on December 29, 2012 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.
Another accused in the case, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail, while a convicted juvenile has come out of the reformation home after serving a three-year term.
