Bombay High Court Grants Bail To Army Officer On Charges Of ‘Rape On Pretext Of Marriage’

Bombay High Court on Friday granted ‘pre-arrest’ bail to an army officer, who was accused by a 28-year-old woman of cheating and raping her on the ‘pretext of marriage’.  According to the complaint, the officer met with the woman on a matrimonial site in 2018. Granting bail, the high court noted the delay by woman in filing rape charges.

A bench consisting of Justice Bharati Dangre, who stayed the pre-arrest of the officer, said:

Both of them were desirous of getting married and both of them invested in the relationship. However, for reasons very personal to them, they drifted apart.

She further cited:

The complainant and the applicant, both being major, are entitled to take decision in their life.

Continuing further Justice Dangre added, that the army personnel was not the one to run away and directed him to be present in Mumbai from August 24 to August 28. She also asked the investigating officer to seek his presence for scrutiny. The bench said:

The fact that he is working in the army, a disciplined officer, is sufficient guarantee of him being in a law abider and there is no hesitation in my mind that he will cooperate with the investigating agency.

Background

In April 2018, the officer, who was posted in another state, came to Mumbai and met the complainant. They both mutually decided to take their relationship to the next level by deciding to get married to each other in December, the same year.

However, she alleged that he “forcibly established a physical relationship” with her and later, was not willing to marry her. According to her, this “hesitancy” made her file an FIR against the military officer last month. She attributed the delay to be under the “impression” that he would marry her. The woman had accused the man of cheating and raping her.

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The officer had earlier applied for pre-arrest bail, however a sessions court judge rejected his plea on August 5. The prosecution said that the woman has also alleged that the man had cheated other women by using “multiple identities” and “14 mobile phone numbers”.

The HC informed that the mobile phone by which he used to be in contact with the complainant woman had been seized. To trace other phones his custody was not required, as the prosecution confirmes that the army man “has co-operated with the investigating officer.”

Bombay High Court later ordered pre-arrest bail for him and asked him to furnish a security bond of Rs 25,000.

In similar other story, a woman had filed an FIR against an Indian Army Colonel, identified as Rajendra Kumar, on December 29, 2019, for allegedly raping her on several occasions on ‘pretext of marriage’, as informed by Dehradun police. The woman said that the recent alleged raped had happened in a hotel in Rajpur in the first week of December last year.

Both of them developed a relationship in 2015 after the woman met him in Delhi, thereafter, they had met several times. The colonel on the other hand had accused the woman of being an extortionist.

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http://voiceformenindia.com/in-the-law/army-man-falsely-accused-of-rape-by-daughter/

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