A man accused of raping a woman here has been acquitted by a Delhi court which ruled that "physical relations between them" were maintained with her "consent".
Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna, who acquitted the Delhi-resident of the rape charges, however, convicted him for wrongfully restraining and beating the woman.
"The bare fact that the prosecutrix knew that the accused is a married man and, (knowing she cannot marry him) yet continued to stay with him, making physical relations and not filing any police complaint... Shows that she had consented to such relations.
"The fact that she stayed with the accused, fully knowing that he was staying alone and used to cook meals for him and they both lived as husband and wife, do bring us to the conclusion that she consented to physical relations," the court said.
The accused was arrested by the police after the woman, a cook by profession, alleged that, since September, 2011, while she was living with him at his flat in south Delhi, she was raped on several occasions by the man on the assurance of getting her employed soon.
"During this period, accused kept engaging in sexual intercourse with her and, whenever, she used to oppose, he said he would marry her," the court was told.
She had further told police that she left the accused's flat on September 28, 2012, after he tried to sell her to a businessman for Rs 50,000.
The accused and one of his friends did not allow her to find employment here and even beat her, she had alleged.
"If the incident of September 28, 2012, had not occurred, she would have never filed this complaint.
"That shows that she was not hurt by the physical relations she had with the accused but was hurt of the beatings she suffered at his hands," the court noted.
It acquitted the man's friend of all the charges against him.
