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The Supreme Court had refused to admit a special leave petition against the Judgment of the High Court on 25.09.2017 acquitting the director of the movie Peepli live Mohammed Farooqi in an alleged case of rape of an American research scholar.
The director was accused of having sexually assaulted a 35 year old American research scholar at his Sukhdev Vihar residence on 28th March, 2015. The incident allegedly took place at a party thrown at Farooqi’s residence involving the presence of two other journalists. The director asked the woman to stay back which is when the sexual assault took place. Both of them were introduced through a common friend whereby Mr Farooqi promised the scholar access to Yogi Adityanath for her research.
The counsels for the victim noted that the argument of consensual sex was introduced for the first time in the appellate stage without any notice. The court appreciated the judgment of the Delhi HC and argued that being in a ‘relationship’ may be held against the victim as she had willingly formed a friendship with accused and had drinks with him although the court does accept that the evidence of such a relationship doesn’t preclude a basic right against rape.
In the proceedings before the trial court, the victim had argued that she didn’t explicitly resist for fear of being killed in similar circumstances as the Nirbhaya case. The trial court did convict Farooqi under the section 375 of IPC awarding a 7 year term to Farooqi by its order dated 04.08.2017. Then on appeal, the HC had acquitted farooqi by drawing a lack of credibility in various parts of the victim’s testimony and evidence.
The Court argued that even after the institution of explanation 2 to the section 375 of IPC doing away with the category of forceful consent, the victim has shown unacceptable behaviour as among friends. After the incident, she even sent a text saying ‘I Love you’. When the victim was showing a positive behaviour, how was the accused to deduce that she was not okay with sexual assault, argued the Court dismissing the petitioners’ plea as to how mere meeting up cannot weaken the victim’s plea.
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