A Delhi court has held a married man guilty of raping a woman, saying that he took her consent to establish physical relations by presenting himself as a bachelor and promising to marry her. Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat convicted Delhi resident Chanderhas Yadav, a father of two children. “The accused had represented falsely to the prosecutrix (girl) all along that he is bachelor and would marry her and had taken her consent for sexual intercourse on false promise of marriage as he being already married, knew that he could not marry her,” the court said. It held that prosecutrix was under firm belief that he is a bachelor and would marry her and it is for this reason she consented to have sexual relations with him.
“Therefore, the consent of woman to establish physical relations with accused is not a free and voluntary consent. The sexual relations between the accused and prosecutrix tantamount to offence of rape committed by the accused,” it said The woman had filed a complaint with police in November 2013, saying that her marriage was fixed with Yadav in December last year but later he refused to tie the knot. She later came to know that he was already married and had two children. The court took into account the fact that the woman had booked the marriage venue and even got the marriage invitation cards printed.
“The evidence led by prosecution clearly and undoubtedly shows that the accused had been assuring the prosecutrix right since the year 2008 that he would marry her and ultimately the date of marriage had been fixed as December 4, 2013,” it said The court said the “accused had concealed his actual marital status from the prosecutrix.” During the trial, Yadav denied that he had proposed marriage and had established physical relations with her on the pretext of marrying her. On the allegation of the woman that Yadav had also taken her gold ornaments and Rs 1.5 lakh and later refused to return the cash and valuable back, the court said there was no evidence to substantiate such allegations.
