'False charges can come from caste hatred' - Dalit man freed
New Delhi: Saying that it has no hesitation in holding that the parents of the victim girls tutored their daughters "sinisterly" and "shamelessly" to falsely accuse a Dalit man of the serious crime of raping them due to their "prejudicial disposition" towards the accused and his community, a Delhi court has acquitted the Ramdas Bansiwal, who has been in jail since 2015 in the case.
While acquitting the man and ordering a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to the "accused victim", Principal District and Sessions Judge Dharmesh Sharma said, "...in our society there is a constant fight between the 'good' and 'evil' and we are living in an age where the moral values in the society are degenerating and everything is possible."
It added that in its experience in navigating through the criminal justice delivery system, people level false accusations for a myriad of reasons, "one of which is caste hatred...and they do so without sensitivity about the honour, dignity, life and liberty of their opponents".
In a lengthy order, the court also pulled up the Delhi Police for its "lackadaisical" probe into the case which was "lacking objectivity". "...no site plan or location of the place of occurrence were made so as to understand the whole locality and place of occurrence in an objective manner," the order read.
The court further observed that it has no hesitation in holding that the parents of the victim girls indulged in the sinister act of tutoring their daughters in a "most brazen" and "shameless" manner.
As per the defence's version, Bansiwal worked as a security guard at a bank and used to regularly quarrel with the parents of the victims over their dog defecating outside his house. He also alleged that they used to pass casteist slurs to him and that hence he was being framed in the offence due to his caste status.
The court said the prosecution's case had "cracks" and was on a "shaky foundation" and "replete with untrue facts".
Court also noted that the police made no efforts in identifying the place of occurrence of repeated sexual assaults as claimed by the victims. It said, "It is not conceivable that in a densely populated un-regularized colony the accused would be doing such acts of repeated sexual assault sitting in front of his house sitting on his chair or on a cot during the day time."
The court ruled that the version of the victims that the accused used to entice them by giving money is "complete distortion of facts probably based on tutoring by their parents". Court also noted that refusal to undergo internal medical examination by the victims led to "cracks" in the case becoming wider.
Further pointing to the reasons for the case falling flat, the judge observed that the testimonies of the four victims were "replete with inconsistencies, improvements or embellishments" and at every stage of the case from the time the matter was reported to the police, "they have tried to improve their version and evidence brought on the judicial record clearly suggests that child witnesses have been heavily tutored by their parents".
