The Allahabad High Court.
Credit: PTI File Photo
Lucknow: In a significant judgement, the Allahabad High Court said that a settlement between the offender and the victim in respect to serious offences like murder, and rape has no legal sanction at all.
A single bench comprising Justice Manju Rani Chauhan gave this ruling while rejecting a petition seeking quashing of the charge-sheet and the proceedings in the trial court, filed by one Toufik Ahmed, who was accused of luring a Hindu girl into marriage by pretending to be Hindu and pressuring her to embrace Islam.
‘’Any compromise between the victim and the offender in relation to such offences cannot provide any basis for quashing the criminal proceedings…the inherent power is not to be exercised in those prosecutions which involve heinous and serious offences...such offences are not private in nature and have a serious impact on society,’’ the court said.
‘’Any compromise or settlement with respect to the offence of rape, against the honour of a woman, which shakes the very core of her life and tantamounts to a serious blow to her supreme honour, offending both her esteem and dignity, is not acceptable to this court,’’ it added.
The court said that if a conversion was not inspired by religion feeling and undergone for its own sake, but was resorted merely with object of creating a ground for some claim of right or as a device adopted for the purpose to avoid marriage or to achieve an object without faith and belief in the unity of God (Allah) and Mahommed to be his prophet, the conversion would not be bonafide.
"In case of a religious conversion there should be a change of heart and honest conviction in the tenets of the new religion in lieu of tenets of the original religion."
In the instant case, an FIR was lodged in June 2021 against Toufik, who then called himself Rahul Kumar, and two unknown persons with the allegations that he befriended a Hindu girl and a year later married the girl.
She later came to know that the aforesaid Rahul Kumar was a Muslim, and said that it was not possible for her to live with him as her religion was Hindu. She was then allegedly beaten by the accused, who also allegedly raped her.
She was allegedly held captive for six months and was sexually assaulted by him and his two friends. She, however, managed to flee and lodged the FIR. The two parties later agreed to reach a 'compromise'.