Lie detected: Court fines rape victim for turning hostile

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 8

For changing her statements in court and turning hostile, the court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Anshu Shukla today held a rape victim guilty of perjury (giving false evidence) and slapped a fine of Rs 500 on her. The court also acquitted the accused in the case and pulled up the rape victim for taking the law for a ride.

The court acquitted 45-year-old Jagdish Rai, who was booked by the UT police on December 14, 2013, on a complaint of the 30-year-old woman. The police had booked the accused under Sections 328 (causing hurt by means of poison), 376 (rape) and 420 (cheating) of the IPC.

The victim, a resident of Patiala, had stated in her first complaint to the police that she was raped by the accused, poisoned and also blackmailed. She had also stated in 2013 that she knew the accused who took her to a hotel and gave her a drink laced with poison and then raped her. She had also said that the accused clicked her pictures, circulated them among her friends and then blackmailed her.

However, during the trial she stated in the court that she was in a relationship with the accused and was never forced into a sexual relationship.

The court acquitted the accused, Jagdish Rai, and simultaneously fined the victim for perjury under Section 193 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

The court, in the show-cause notice to the victim under Section 193 of the CrPC (perjury), stated that the victim had intentionally given false evidence with the intention that the evidence should be used in judicial proceedings and that it was necessary and expedient in the interests of justice that she be tried for giving false evidence. The victim, in her reply to the notice of perjury proceedings, stated that she was in a live-in relationship with the accused and when he left her, she approached an advocate for initiating proceedings against the accused as per the law. “He told me that he will file the appropriate case and obtained my signatures on blank papers and power of attorney. I came to know later that the present case had been registered and even told the police to file an FIR. The police told me to give statements as per the version of the FIR. However, I refused to tell a lie in court. I had stated true facts,” said the victim in the reply.