False Rape Charges on the Rise – (Part 2)

I was recently reading a news article wherein lawyers and activists had demanded that a trial court judge should not be allowed to preside over rape cases as he had a patriarchal morality. On reading through the detailed judgment we find the following:

1. The woman made contrary statements on when they had sexual intercourse. In one statement she said, the first sexual intercourse was in the year ‘X’ and during cross-examination she stated that the sexual intercourse was in the year ‘Y’. There was a wide difference in the years made in the 2 statements at different times.
2. The woman herself stated that the boy did not give any time frame for marriage, therefore had no guarantee when the boy would marry her. Hence, she ought to have been circumspect before giving her consent for sexual intercourse.
3. The emails and chats provided by the boy show a completely different picture. It showed that the woman was insisting the boy to have sexual intercourse with her and the boy was not inclined to the same.
4. There was no indication in the emails and chats that the boy had made any promise of marriage to the woman and that she consented to sexual intercourse with the boy only for that promise and in fact, sexual intercourse had taken place between the two.
5. The woman was a major when she started chatting with the boy. Further, she was well-educated and working in an office job with a reputed company in a large metropolitan city. She was an independent woman and had resided on rent alone in the large metropolitan city since the past few years.

Based on the facts the learned judge stated that –

“In my opinion, every act sexual intercourse between two adults on the assurance of promise of marriage does not become rape, if the assurance or promise is not fulfilled later on by the boy. When a grown up, educated and office going woman subjects herself to sexual intercourse with a friend or colleague on the latter’s promise that he would marry her, she does so at her own peril. She must be taken to understand the consequences of her act and must know that there is no guarantee that the boy would fulfill his promise. He may or may not do so. She must understand that she is engaging in an act which not only is immoral but also against the tenets of every religion. No religion in the world allows pre-marital sex.”

Based on the facts of the case and reading the statement in context it does not seem that the learned judge had any patriarchal mindset as stated by various activists. This seems to be a progressive judgment based on facts in which a boy was accused of a false rape charge. Strong contrary facts to the above were found during trial.

Many activists are stating that such judgments have a serious impact on the society, as victims become scared of complaining by seeing the attitude of the courts. This is a very flawed and incorrect argument, as there is no accountability whatsoever for filing a frivolous complaint by the woman primarily because of:

• Her identity is protected and hence filing a frivolous complaint has no public backlash for her. Whereas the accused’s life is totally destroyed due to her frivolous complaint.
• As a public prosecutor is provided to the woman, there is no financial drain on her resources.
• There are hardly any consequences in Indian law for filing a false rape case. (though a perjury case may be filed)

One accusation from a woman makes the man a criminal, one accusation destroys his career and one accusation drains out his savings on legal recourse for defending himself.

False rape complaints are a menace to the society and stringent action should be taken against them, the NCRB data below speaks for itself.

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‘% of convicted cases’ has been calculated as a percentage of the number of incidents reported during the year. (ie. Number of cases in which convictions were made during the year / Number of reported incidents during the year)

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