SIDHANATH LALA PANDULE Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant is apprehending his arrest in CR No. 258 of 2023 registered with Loni Kalbhore Police Station (Pune city) on 10/04/2023, which has invoked the offence under Ss. 376, 376 (2)(n), 313, 504, 506 a/w 3(1)(w)(i), 3(1)(w) (ii), 3(2)(va) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

(2.) The perusal of the complaint, lodged by the respondent no.2, a women aged 35 years has given the date of occurrence of the offence to be from 26/01/2017 to 10/03/2022. In the complaint, she has disclosed that she had obtained divorce from her husband in the year 2010, and while she was residing with her brother, she came in contact with the present applicant in the year 2017, as he visited her house on maintaining friendly relationship with her brother. It is the accusations against the appellant that, when her brother was not at home, he expressed his liking towards her and when she refused to establish any alliance, he is alleged to have told her that he would keep her as his second wife and threatened that she maintain relationship with him. The first incident when it is alleged that the physical relationship was maintained, is reported to be have taken place on 26/01/2017, when the appellant visited her house, in absence of her brother and committed forcible intercourse. It is also alleged that he clicked some pictures and threatened her, that if she restrain him from having the sexual pleasure, on demand, he would make the same viral. Being threatened, she continued the relationship and it is her accusation that in the year 2019 she conceived, but terminated the pregnancy on 14/05/2019.

(3.) The learned counsel for the appellant would assertively submit that though this incident narrated in the complaint is alleged to have occurred in the year 2019, the complaint is lodged almost after two years, on 10/04/2023 and that itself speaks for volumes. His specific submission is, the relationship maintained was consensual and there was no promise of marriage, on the contrary since she was a divorcee, both of them maintained a relationship, with sufficient understanding and maturity, and therefore, the accusations of the physical intercourse being indulged into against her Will and without her Consent, is not established.