Man freed of charges of raping divorced wife, forcing abortion

A Delhi court has acquitted a man of the charges of raping his divorced wife and compelling her to terminate pregnancy thrice saying she lodged a false case against him after he stopped paying money to her.

Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhatt absolved the man, a Delhi resident, saying, "It appears that accused was paying money to her even after the dissolution of their marriage in year 2007 and later when he stopped paying money to her, she consulted a lawyer, on whose advice she lodged a false complaint of rape and forced abortions."

The judge, while acquitting the accused of the charges under sections 376 (rape), 313 (causing miscarriage without woman's consent) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC, observed that there was no consistency in statements of the woman and she has been changing her version at every stage.

The court noted that the complainant, in her statement recorded before a metropolitan magistrate, had stated that her grievance against the accused was that he had stopped paying money to her and also used to avoid her telephone calls.

She then consulted her lawyer telling him that she does not have any money to make her both ends meet and upon the advice of the lawyer, she filed a complaint of rape, it said.
The court also took into consideration the petition under domestic violence act filed by the woman in 2014, which she withdrew later saying that she was living separately with her children from first marriage and did not have any physical relations with the accused since divorce.

Regarding the claim that she was forced to abort her pregnancy three times, the court said there was no evidence regarding two out of the three pregnancies.

"There is no evidence on record regarding the abortion of prosecutrix of the years 2005 and 2008. Prosecution produced evidence only regarding her abortion in 2013 but documents demonstrate that she had herself visited hospital in 2013 for termination of her pregnancy with her consent," it said.

According to the prosecution, the woman, who was a widow and had two children, got into a love affair with the accused, who was also a widower and they got married in 2004.
The accused started ill-treating her few days after the marriage, the woman alleged, adding that they divorced in 2007 but he gave the assurance of bearing her expenses.

The complaint said that after divorce also they had physical relations and that she became pregnant three times but had to get it terminated under pressure from the accused.

The accused then stopped bearing her expenses and used to beat her regularly, it said.
In 2014, she had filed a domestic violence case against him but withdrew it later after he pursuaded her, the police said, adding that the woman said that he again harassed her and threatened to kill her after which she lodged a rape case against him after consulting a lawyer.

During the trial, the accused denied the allegations that he had sexual relations with the woman or forced her to terminate pregnancy.

He also stated that he had severed all relations with the woman in the year 2005 and they have been living separately since then and she has filed a false complaint against him to extract money from him illegally.