Delhi District Court
Prashant Bharti vs . State 2013 (2013) 9 Scc 293 Makes It ... on 5 May, 2018
IN THE COURT OF MS. ANU GROVER BALIGA
ADDITIONAL SESSIONS JUDGE/SPL. FAST TRACK COURT
PATIALA HOUSE COURT/NEW DELHI
SC No. 111/2017
FIR No. 225/13
PS Vasant Vihar
State v. 1. Vishal Sharma
Sh. S.C. Sharma
R/o C25, Green Park
New Delhi 110016.
2. Karan Chadha
S/o Sh. Satish Chadha
R/o R75, New Rajinder Nagar
New Delhi - 110060.
Date of Institution - 19.10.2013
Date of Committal - 11.04.2017
Arguments heard/Order reserved - 17.04.2018
Date of Order - 05.05.2018
Final order - Discharged
ORDER
1.Vide the present order, I shall decide the application filed on behalf of the accused persons seeking their discharge in the present case.
2. The main contention of the accused persons is that the present SC No. 111/2017 1 of 21 complaint has been filed against them only because they had got the complainant arrested for having embezzled huge amounts of money from their firm, namely Affinity Salon. It is the submission of the accused persons that the accused Vishal is the proprietor of Affinity Salon and the accused Karan Chadha is the General Manager of the said firm and the prosecutrix and one Rakesh had been working as Managers at the Vasant Vihar Branch of Affinity Salon and both of them had been entrusted with handling the cash register and further that the Affinity Salon had launched a special scheme on the occasion of its 20th anniversary wherein vouchers were issued for old loyal customers who could take coupons worth Rs.14,000/ for Rs.10,000/ and redeem the same after availing services. It is further submitted that in a surprise audit on 04.05.2013, it was discovered that forged vouchers worth Rs.1.55 lac had been used at Vasant Vihar Branch and against the said vouchers, cash had been withdrawn and the further audit revealed that infact both the complainant and the said Mr. Rakesh had embezzled an amount of more than Rs.5 lacs from Affinity Salon and since both of them, on being confronted with the vouchers and other documents, failed to provide any satisfactory explanation, a criminal case was got registered against them and FIR No.152/13 u/s 406,420,468,471,34 IPC was registered at P.S. Vasant Vihar on the complaint of the accused Karan Chadha against the complainant and Mr. Rakesh. It is also the submission of the accused persons that in the said case the complainant resorted to all kinds of lies to obtain bail and according to the accused persons, in the bail SC No. 111/2017 2 of 21 application filed in the said proceedings, the complainant asserted that her coaccused Rakesh Thakur was the mastermind of the fraud and that she had nothing to do with him. This, according to the accused persons, is a total misrepresentation because the Investigating Officer of this very case has verified that the complainant had infact got married to said Rakesh Thakur in the Arya Samaj Mandir at Ghaziabad, U.P and the marriage certificate has also been issued by the Registrar of Marriages at Ghaziabad, U.P and that the Investigating Officer has verified the said certificate to be genuine. It has also been pointed out by Ld. Counsels for the accused persons, Sh. Shaunak Kashyap and Sh. Rahul Mukherjee that this complaint was filed by the prosecutrix on 17.05.2013 i.e. a week after she was granted bail in the aforementioned FIR and the submission, therefore, is that the complaint in the present case was got registered against them by the prosecutrix only as a counter blast to the FIR that was got registered against her and Rakesh, with a view to blackmail and arm twist the accused persons in not deposing anything against the complainant in the trial of the said case. It has also been pointed out by the Ld. Counsel for the accused persons that the Investigating Officer of the present case has fairly investigated the allegations made by the prosecutrix and found the same to be completely false and that is the reason, a closure / cancellation report was filed by the investigating agency before the Ld. Metropolitan Magistrate. It has also been submitted that the Ld. MM, however, based on the protest petition filed by the prosecutrix, chose to summon the accused SC No. 111/2017 3 of 21 persons and it is the contention of the Ld. Defence Counsels that the said summoning is not a bar at all for the defence to pray before this court to discharge the accused persons. Ld. Defence Counsels have made this court go through the entire cancellation report and the documents annexed therewith to contend that it will be a grave injustice if this court despite the investigation carried out by the investigating agency, chooses to go ahead with the trial of this case.
3. Before adverting to the submissions made by the Ld.Counsel for the prosecutrix, Sh. Vikram Dua with respect to the prayer for discharge, it will be relevant herein to first refer to the allegations made by the prosecutrix against the accused persons in her complaint dated 17.05.2013 to the Commissioner of Police,IP Estate, New Delhi, pursuant to which the present FIR was registered on 22.06.2013, against the accused persons for having committed the offences punishable under sections 376D and 506 IPC. In the said complaint, the complainant has interalia made the following main assertions / allegations: a. That she had been working as Manager at Affinity Salon at 24, Community Center, Basant Lok, Vasant Vihar and that one Vishal Sharma was the proprietor thereof and Karan Chadha was the General Manager of the said establishment.
b. That on 28.01.2013, at about 11.30 p.m, in the basement of the aforementioned premises, the two aforementioned persons had committed gang rape upon her. According to the complainant, on this SC No. 111/2017 4 of 21 date, the complainant had participated in the Managers' Meeting held at Wella Academy situated at Select City Mall, Saket, New Delhi and that after the said meeting was concluded, at about 11 p.m., both the accused persons took her alongwith them in their car on the pretext that they would drop her at the place of her residence, but instead, they took her in their car to the office of Affinity Salon and on the way, they served her a Campa Cola laced with some intoxicants and that she became semi unconscious after consuming the same.
c. That the accused persons thereafter forcibly had sexual intercourse with her and that while committing the said act, they prepared a video photography of the act and had shown it to her and had threatened her that in case she discloses to anybody the act committed by them, they will disclose the said video to her relatives.
d. That the accused persons had repeated this act of forcible sexual intercourse upon her again on 06.03.2013 at about 8.30 p.m, on 10.04.2013 at about 8.30 p.m and finally on 03.05.2013 at about 8.30 p.m. On this day, according to the complainant, after both the accused persons had forcibly committed rape upon her, she had threatened them that she would report the incidents to the Police which led to a heated altercation between her and the accused persons and then the accused persons threatened her that they would implicate her in a false case of criminal breach of trust and forgery of documents and that to put her under fear, they even brought certain documents already manufactured by them and also called a police officer and then all of them in pursuance of their common intention threatened SC No. 111/2017 5 of 21 her that if she wants to get rid of the aforementioned criminal case of criminal breach of trust, she should pay an amount of Rs.3 lacs to them or else they will get her arrested on the spot and will take her to the Police Station.
(e) That on account of extreme shock and fear of the said threat of the accused persons, she begged them for grant of some time for arrangement of said money and that she was allowed to go to her home only after she gave a written undertaking to them that she will return on 04.05.2013 with the aforesaid amount demanded by them.
(f) That on 04.05.2013, she was called by the accused persons to report to the office of Affinity Salon and may again informed her that in case she does not pay them the amount of Rs.3 lacs, they will get her arrested in a case of forgery and criminal breach of trust and will also get the news of her arrest published in a local newspaper and they further told her to come with an amount of Rs.3 lacs at P.S. Vasant Vihar. Accordingly, the complainant alongwith her parents reached at P.S. Vasant Vihar where in presence of SI Nand Kishore, she paid an amount of Rs.3 lacs and it is her grievance that despite payment of said amount, the accused persons still went ahead and got registered an FIR No.152/13 at P.S. Vasant Vihar, New Delhi against her for having committed the offences punishable u/s 406/420/471/467/34 IPC. It was prayed by the complainant that her allegations should be looked into and inquired by an officer not below the rank of ACP of a District other than the District of PS Vasant Vihar for according to her the ACP of P.S Vasant Vihar had colluded SC No. 111/2017 6 of 21 with the accused persons.
4. Now admittedly as per record, after detailed investigation of the aforementioned allegations, a closure report was filed by the investigating agency before the court of Ld. MM, Patiala House Courts and it was mentioned in the closure report that none of the allegations made could be corroborated by any evidence. It was inter alia mentioned in the chargesheet that both the accused persons had assertedly informed the IO that on 28.01.2013, the Managers of all branches of Affinity Salon had attended a meeting at Wella Academy, Select City Mall, Saket between 9.30 to 11.30 p.m. and that after the said meeting was concluded, the complainant alongwith Rakesh Thakur had left in the car of Rakesh Thakur at about 11.45 p.m. and the accused persons with other Managers Ms. Kavita Bareja and Mr. Saurabh Soni had icecream in the Mall and thereafter had gone to the house of accused Vishal Sharma at Green Park and at the residence of Vishal Sharma, Saurabh Soni went away in his own vehicle which was parked in the said residence and the accused Karan Chadha dropped Kavita Bareja at her residence and thereafter came back to his own house at Qutab Institutional Area.
5. Pursuant to the said statements given by the accused persons, call details record (CDRs) of mobiles used by both the accused persons and the prosecutrix were collected by the IO and after analysis of the said CDRs, the IO came to the conclusion that on none SC No. 111/2017 7 of 21 of the dates, that the complainant had alleged that she had been gang raped in the basement of the office of Affinity Salon, Vasant Vihar, was the location of the mobile phones of the prosecutrix or the accused persons found in the area of Vasant Vihar.
6. Ms. Kavita Bareja and Sh. Saurabh Soni were also then examined and they corroborated the version given by the accused persons. Thereafter, 0809 other branch Managers who had attended the Managers' Meeting were also examined and all of them have informed the IO that on 28.01.2013, the complainant alongwith Rakesh Thakur had left the meeting in his car. Two other employees of Affinity Salon namely Ms. Ekta and one guard Uma Shankar were also examined during investigation. Ms. Ekta gave a statement to the IO that on 03.05.2013, the accused Karan Chadha had come to the Salon at about 6 p.m and during the audit of the coupons amount, some discrepancies were found regarding which both the complainant and Rakesh Thakur were questioned.
7. The guard Uma Shankar also informed the IO that he had been working as a guard for the last 8 years at the office of Affinity Salon and that after the Salon was closed he used to hand over one key of the main gate to Rakesh Thakur and the other key to the complainant and that he used to retain one key of the rear gate of the Salon with him. He further informed the IO that on 03.05.2013 at about 8.30 p.m after he had locked the main front gate he had given the keys to SC No. 111/2017 8 of 21 Rakesh Thakur and the complainant who thereafter remained in the Salon for about one hour and thereafter left the Salon from its rear gate.
8. Admittedly, the IO of this case also verified that the complainant in this case infact was married to Rakesh Kumar and therefore, her allegation that she being unmarried and therefore had not disclosed the fact of her gang rape by the accused persons to anybody for fear of getting defamed, was also found to be false by the IO. The conclusion of the IO therefore was that the present complaint had been filed against the accused persons only because the complainant had been arrested in FIR No. 152/13 u/s 406/420/471/467/34 P.S. Vasant Vihar and it was also mentioned in the closure report that not once during her arrest in the said case had the prosecutrix ever complained that she had been sexually assaulted by the accused persons neither before the Ld. MM before whom she was produced nor before the doctor who had medically examined her after the registration of the said FIR.
9. Now despite this aforementioned closure report, Ld. Counsel for the prosecutrix has sought to contend before this court that it is not open to the accused persons to rely upon the investigation conducted by the Investigating Officer once the Ld. MM, despite the closure report filed by the investigating agency has chosen to take cognizance of the offence committed in the present case and has SC No. 111/2017 9 of 21 summoned the accused persons. It has been pointed out by the Ld. Counsel for the prosecutrix that the Ld. MM in his order dated 28.01.2017 has clearly and categorically rejected the closure report and has held that in cases like the present, the sole statement of the prosecutrix is sufficient to convict a person of rape. It is further the contention of the Ld. Counsel for the prosecutrix that the CDRs placed on record by the IO do not even support the defence being taken by the accused persons - the contention is that the accused persons had informed the Investigating Officer their locations on the dates of the incidents and according to Ld. Counsel, the CDRs placed on record do not show the locations of the accused persons at the said places. The contention therefore is that the possibility that the accused persons were using more than one mobile cannot be ruled out and therefore the fact that the CDRs collected by the IO do not support the allegations of the complainant has not much relevance. It is also the submission of the Ld. Counsel for the prosecutrix that even otherwise the call detail records are not of such scientific quality that they can be relied upon by a court for the determination of the guilt or innocence of an accused. In this respect, some literature down loaded from the internet has been filed on record. Ld. Counsel for the prosecutrix has also vehemently contended that the IO of the present case has also acted in collusion with the accused persons and therefore, deliberately had not seized the mobile phones of the accused to verify the existing of video clip that the prosecutrix had been asserting was taken by the accused persons while committing SC No. 111/2017 10 of 21 rape upon her. It is also being submitted that the IO of the present case did not deliberately collect the CCTV footage from the camera installed at Vasant Vihar Market which could have to some extent corroborated the allegation made by the prosecutrix regarding the presence of the accused persons in Vasant Vihar on the dates of her asserted rape. The contention, therefore, is that at the stage of framing of charges, this court must rely only upon the statement of the prosecutrix given to the investigating agency and to the Ld. MM u/s 164 Cr.P.C and frame charges against the accused persons for having committed the offence of gang rape.
10. In rebuttal, Ld. Defence Counsels have vehemently contended before this court that the judgement of the Hon'ble Supreme Court pronounced in the case titled and reported as Prashant Bharti Vs. State 2013 (2013) 9 SCC 293 makes it clear that the courts should not allow any abuse of its process and should not proceed with a trial which does not serve the ends of justice. Ld. Defence Counsel has pointed out that in the said case, the Hon'ble Supreme Court had relied upon the call detail records of the prosecutrix and the accused before it, to reach a conclusion that the version of the prosecutrix was false. According to the Ld. Defence Counsels, in the present case also, the CDRs of the accused persons and the complainant collected by the IO clearly reveal that the accused persons were not present alongwith the complainant at any of the places on the dates or time alleged by her and therefore, their SC No. 111/2017 11 of 21 contention is that this court must not overlook the said scientific evidence placed on record alongwith the closure report and discharge the accused persons at this stage itself. Apart from the said CDRs, Ld. Defence Counsels have also relied upon the statements of the witnesses recorded during investigation by the Investigating Officer to contend that the version put forward by the prosecutrix is nothing but a bundle of lies.
11. This court has carefully considered the submissions made by all the Ld. Counsels and has also gone through the record of this case.
12. Both the main Investigating Officers were also summoned by this court and they were specifically asked the reasons for not seizing the mobile phones of the accused persons and also for not verifying whether the accused persons had been using more than one mobile phone. The IO Ms. Pratibha Sharma has filed her report in writing before this court that the accused persons had categorically informed her that they were using only one mobile phone and further that she had inspected the said mobile phones and had not found any obscene video clip alleged by the prosecutrix and that is the only reason the mobile phones were not seized. She has further submitted before this court that since the prosecutrix was also not aware of any other mobile numbers of the accused persons, she had not made any further inquiry in this respect. It has also been submitted by the IO SI Monika in writing that the CCTV footage being referred to by the Ld.Counsel SC No. 111/2017 12 of 21 for the prosecutrix, could not be collected as the concerned authorities had categorically informed her that the said footage is preserved only for 10 days and admittedly, in the present case, the prosecutrix had made her complaint much after 10 days of the alleged incident.
13. Though, in rebuttal to the submissions made by the IOs, submission of the Ld. Counsel for the prosecutrix is that the IO could have made inquiries from various mobile service providers to find out if any other mobile numbers other than the numbers provided by the accused persons themselves were being used by them or not, the fact of the matter remains that the only material upon which the Ld. Counsel for the prosecutrix and the Ld. Addl PP for the State are now relying upon to insist that charges be framed against the accused persons is the statement of the prosecutrix and the question therefore that needs consideration is whether the said statement alone can be made the basis of framing charges against the accused persons in view of the fact that the allegations made therein stand negated by the investigation carried out (This court is of the considered opinion that despite the fact that the Ld. Magistrate has summoned the accused persons, it is still open to this court to go through the entire material on record to decide if the same is or is not sufficient for framing charges against the accused persons - no judicial dicta, to the contrary has been brought to the notice of this court by the prosecution).
SC No. 111/2017 13 of 21
14. Now though there is no doubt about the proposition of law that in cases of sexual offences even in the absence of any corroborative evidence, the statement of the prosecutrix alone can be sufficient to convict a person of the offence that he has been charged with, however, at the same time it has been consistently held by the higher courts that such a statement has to be of an impeccable credibility and sterling quality and in the considered opinion of this court, in the present case, at this stage itself, without even crossexamination of or rebuttal of the statement of the prosecutrix, it can be held that this statement is inherently unbelievable and this is so because of the following reasons:
A. It is the own statement of the prosecutrix that on 03.05.2013 she had told the accused persons that she would be filing a complaint against them with the Police since she was fed up with their exploitation of her. According to the assertion made in the complaint, when she told the accused persons of her intentions, they threatened her that if she dares to file a complaint against them, they would falsely implicate her in a case of forgery / embezzlement. She further goes on to narrate that thereafter the accused persons called a police official to their office and made her sign on some fabricated documents and thereafter even demanded Rs.3 lacs from her for not pressing the charges against her. It absolutely belies logic and common sense that if the accused persons, according to the complainant, were threatening her to falsely implicate her and then SC No. 111/2017 14 of 21 infact went ahead and got one FIR registered against her, what stopped the complainant then from making a complaint against the accused persons for having gang raped her. As narrated hereinabove, the prosecutrix herself in her complaint has stated that on 03.05.2013 she had made up her mind to make a complaint against the accused persons irrespective of the fact that they had an obscene video clip featuring her - in view of such assertions, it is beyond comprehension as to why the complainant did not then go ahead and inform the Police officials of PS Vasant Vihar that she was being falsely implicated by the accused persons in a case of forgery and embezzlement and in fact, it was the accused persons who had been gang raping her. Her statement that all the police officials of PS Vasant Vihar were acting in collusion with the accused persons, does not explain as to why did she not then bring these facts to the Ld. MM before whom she was produced and sent to judicial custody. Admittedly, even while seeking bail it was not at all averred before the concerned court that it is the prosecutrix who was the victim of gang rape and a false case has been registered against her by the accused persons and on the contrary, admittedly the prosecutrix paid an amount of Rs.3 lacs to the accused persons and took a plea before the Ld. Court that the mastermind of the fraud committed was infact Rakesh Thakur and that she had nothing to do with the fraud. Though it has been rightly contended by the Defence that even this plea of the prosecutrix was false because it stands verified that she had been married to this Rakesh Thakur, what is more relevant for the purposes SC No. 111/2017 15 of 21 of the present case is that it is only after the prosecutrix was released on bail in the said case that a week thereafter she chose to give a complaint to the Commissioner of Police alleging that the accused persons had committed gang rape upon her. The contention of the Ld. Counsel for the prosecutrix that all these questions being raised by the court are matter of trial and that the prosecutrix will furnish an explanation in this respect only during trial and not now is absolutely misplaced. There is no proposition of law which enjoins a court to accept the statement of the complainant bereft of common sense. In the considered opinion of this court, the statement of the complainant about what transpired on 03.05.2013 belies logic and it does not appeal to common sense at all as to why she did not lodge a complaint against the accused persons on 03.05.2013 itself (more so when it is her own assertion that the obscene video no longer remained a relevant consideration for her) and the court is within its right to ask the prosecutrix to explain the same, at this stage itself, in a case where the investigating agency after a complete and detailed investigation has found nothing incriminating against the accused persons and on the contrary has found sufficient evidence to negate the allegations of the complainant. As narrated hereinabove as many as 89 employees of Affinity Salon have informed the IO that on 28.01.2013 all of them had witnessed the prosecutrix leaving the mall alongwith Rakesh Thakur in his vehicle. The guard of Affinity Salon who has also been examined by Ld. MM u/s 164 Cr.P.C. has given a categorical statement that on none of the nights alleged by the prosecutrix, had SC No. 111/2017 16 of 21 the accused persons come to Affinity Salon. His categorical statement is that he was on duty an all nights and that the keys of the branch office of Vasant Vihar, where the prosecutrix alleges that the rape had been committed upon her, used to remain only with the prosecutrix and Rakesh Thakur and himself i.e. the guard. Therefore, present is not a case where the statement of the prosecutrix could not be corroborated due to the nature of the offence committed upon her. Present is a case where there are atleast 78 witnesses who have informed the IO that the incidents alleged by the prosecutrix could not have taken place on the dates alleged by her and in the premises alleged by her.
B. Apart from these witnesses, the CDR of the mobile belonging to the prosecutrix also shows that she has made false allegations. As narrated hereinabove, according to the prosecutrix, on 03.05.2013 after the accused persons had committed rape upon her, at about 10 p.m in the basement of Affinity Salon, Community Centre, Vasant Lok, Vasant Vihar, she told them that she will be reporting about the incident to the Police and that thereafter both the accused persons threatened her that they would implicate her in a false case of criminal breach of trust and forgery of documents and further that to put her under fear they even brought certain documents for her to sign and thereafter called a police official at the said basement and that the accused persons and the police official then threatened her that they will get her arrested and will take her to the Police Station and that SC No. 111/2017 17 of 21 she was allowed to leave the basement only after she gave them a written undertaking that she will return an amount of Rs.3 lacs to them on 04.05.2013. Now if these allegations of the prosecutrix were infact true then she should have been in the aforementioned basement right from 8:30 p.m ( the time she alleges when the accused persons started to rape her) till 1112 midnight. However, the CDRs of the mobile of the prosecutrix collected during investigation reveal that on this day w.e.f. 9:32 pm to 11:42 p.m, her location was at Keshav Puram, the place where she admittedly resides. As regards the contention of Ld. Counsel for the prosecutrix, on the basis of some literature downloaded from the internet, that since a cell phone has enough power to reach a cell tower upto 45 miles away depending upon the technology of the cell phone network, it is possible that while the prosecutrix was in Vasant Vihar on 03.05.2013 between 8:30 p.m. to 12 midnight, it is the cell power of Keshav Puram which connected to her mobile, suffice it to state that the same literature also mentions that in urban areas, cell power is reduced to eliminate interference with neighbouring towers owing to which a cell phone would have to be within a few hundred yards of a cell tower to pick up its signal. It is absolutely unacceptable that in a city like Delhi which has approximately 60,000 cell towers, though the prosecutrix was present in Affinity Salon, Vasant Vihar, her mobile phone will instead of connecting to a tower nearby Vasant Vihar, will connect to a tower in Keshav Puram, which is approx. 25 km away from Vasant Vihar. It cannot at all be ignored that on various other dates when the SC No. 111/2017 18 of 21 prosecutrix was, as per her contentions, present in Affinity Salon, Vasant Vihar or nearby areas, her location in the CDR is revealed at Vasant Lok, Vasant Vihar only - to cite an example on the night of 28.01.2013, at about 8:51 p.m., when the prosecutrix, as per her own assertion was in Vasant Vihar, her location in the CDR is shown to be at Vasant Vihar only. This court, therefore, does not find at all any ground to doubt the location of the mobile phone of the prosecutrix being reflected in the CDRs collected. The said CDRs also negate her allegations that on 06.03.2013, she was also raped by the accused persons at about 8:30 p.m at the same office of Affinity Salon, for the CDRs reflects that on 06.03.2013 at about 8:30 p.m., she was at Malviya Nagar, at about 8:40 p.m, she was at Aurobindo Marg, at about 9:16 she was at Brar Square and at about 9:45 p.m, she reached Keshav Puram, admittedly where her residence is. The said CDR thus reveals that from about 8:20 p.m to 9:45 p.m, the prosecutrix was travelling from Malviya Nagar to her house and therefore negates her allegation that she was being gang raped by the accused persons during this period. It is relevant to mention herein that though the Ld. Counsel for the accused persons had also sought to rely upon the CDRs of the mobiles of the accused persons to contend that their locations were nowhere near to the complainant on the dates and times she alleged that she had been gang raped by them, this court has not relied upon the same in view of the contention of Ld. Counsel for the prosecutrix that there may be a possibility that the accused persons may have been using some other mobile numbers. However, since the SC No. 111/2017 19 of 21 prosecutrix herself has not denied and has infact categorically accepted that she was only using one mobile number and that she had remained in possession of the same on various dates, on which the rape had allegedly taken, this court has, therefore, examined only her CDRs to verify her allegations and on the basis of the same, is of the considered opinion that the prosecutrix cannot at all be believed.
15. No doubt, the contention of the Ld. Counsel for the prosecutrix that at the stage of charge, a court should not make a roving inquiry into the evidence on record, is absolutely correct, however, as laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the Prashant Bharti's case (supra - the judgement referred to by the Ld. Defence Counsels) where there is an irrefutable evidence available before the court before the commencement of trial, the court can look into the same. In the said case also, the Hon'ble Supreme Court had examined the CDRs of the mobile phones of the prosecutrix and the accused therein to come to a conclusion that the allegations made by the prosecutrix of rape were false. Similarly, in the case titled and reported as Ramesh Thakur Vs. State of Another (2013) 200 DLT 676, the Hon'ble Delhi High court had also looked into the CDRs of the complainant therein to come to a conclusion that she was falsely alleging that she had been raped at a particular place by the accused persons. Thus, the contention of Ld.Counsel for the prosecutrix that the CDRs are not at all be looked into at this stage, cannot be therefore accepted by this court. The process of law is meant to SC No. 111/2017 20 of 21 protect a victim of offences and not unscrupulous persons who seek to abuse the process of law and that of courts to settle scores. The Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case titled and reported as Karnataka Vs. L. Munnu Swamy AIR 1977 SC 1489 has tellingly observed that court proceedings ought not to be permitted to degenerate into a weapon of harassment or persecution.
16. In view of the detailed discussion hereinabove, this court is of the considered opinion that even primafacie the statement of the prosecutrix does not inspire any confidence in this court to put this case to trial and it is apparent that this complaint was lodged by the prosecutrix only as a counter blast to the complaint filed against her by the accused persons for having embezzled a huge amount of money from Affinity Salon. The investigating agency has fairly investigated her allegations and found the same to be without any basis and this court does not find any reason to doubt the findings of the investigating agency. As such, both the accused persons are hereby discharged of the offences for which they have been chargesheeted. Digitally signed by ANU ANU GROVER BALIGA Announced in Open Court GROVER Date:
On 5th day of May, 2018 BALIGA 2018.05.07 16:17:57 +0530 (Anu Grover Baliga) Court No.7, Lock UP Building ASJ / FTC / PHC / NDD New Delhi /05.05.2018 SC No. 111/2017 21 of 21