Madhya Pradesh High Court quashes rape case, says complainant lodged FIR to extract money

The Madhya Pradesh High Court recently quashed a rape case against a 34-year-old man after noting that the complainant had lodged the First Information (FIR) with an ulterior motive to extract money from the accused..Justice Sanjay Dwivedi took note of the fact that the complainant had made similar type of allegations against other persons and got FIRs registered against them as well.“Thus, it can be clearly gathered that it is nothing but a modus operandi of the complainant to implicate the innocent persons and extract money from them which is established from an affidavit given by the complainant admitting therein that the offence got registered on her false statement about committing rape on false promise of marriage whereas physical relation got developed by her as per her own wish and she extracted money from the accused person,” the Court said..In the present case, the accused was booked by the police in February 2022 in relation to an incident dating back to June 2020. It was alleged that the complainant, a 24-year-old woman, had been raped on the pretext of marriage by the accused.The complainant said she later came to know the accused was already married. He refused to marry her despite asking repeatedly, she claimed.However, the counsel representing the accused submitted there was a delay in registration of the FIR and that the complainant was operating a “racket of honey trap” to extract money from innocent persons.The Court was also informed that the complainant was already facing an FIR and had implicated the present accused only because he had registered a case against her and two others for blackmailing him. .Considering the facts on record, the Court found that the woman had filed an application before the Magistrate for registration of FIR against the accused almost a year after the incident.“In the application, it is not disclosed as to why report was not made to the police for such a long time, although from the contents of FIR it reveals that when complainant came to know about the fact that present petitioner is already married then only she decided to take action against present petitioner and hence she filed an application before the JMFC Chhatarpur. Although nowhere it is disclosed as to on what basis complainant came to know about the fact that petitioner was already married, but the petitioner has denied this fact that he ever developed physical relation with the complainant,” it noted..The Court also found that the complainant had lodged FIRs against different men alleging that they had developed physical relations. It took note of three such FIRs.An affidavit of the complainant stating that she had received ₹3.5 Lakh from a person against whom she had registered a rape case, was also on record. She had later given a statement that the physical relationship was consensual. .Therefore, the Court opined that the conduct of the woman was suspicious.Further, no explanation was furnished with respect to the delay in registration of FIR, the Court noted.“Although in normal circumstances the delay in lodging the FIR in a case of rape is not considered to be a material aspect, but here in this case the delay carries importance because on the basis of the conduct of the prosecutrix and the allegations made by the petitioner against her, the delay plays important role and makes the total case suspicious," the Court said. In view of the above, the Court quashed the FIR..Advocate Eshaan Datta represented the accused.Advocate Amit Bhurrak represented the State.