Media reports on rape ignored, court acquits youth over 'unreliable' girl

A youth has been acquitted of kidnapping and raping a girl with a Delhi court saying that the alleged victim's statement was "unreliable" and that the courts should not be swayed by the media reports.

"It should not be ignored that the court has to confine itself to the ambit of law and the contents of the file as well as the testimonies of the witnesses and is not to be swayed by emotions or reporting in the media," said Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Nivedita Anil Sharma, while acquitting the accused.

She made the observation while dealing with a case of kidnapping and rape of a girl in 2010.

"It would not be out of place to mention here that today there is a hue and cry being raised everywhere that courts are not convicting the rape accused.

"However, no man, accused of rape, can be convicted if the witnesses do not support the prosecution case or give quality evidence, as in the present case where the evidence of the prosecutrix is unreliable and untrustworthy.." the court said.

According to the prosecution, Uttam Nagar resident Satbir Singh had kidnapped the girl in November last year and had also raped her.

During the trial, Singh had rebutted the entire evidence against him and said he was falsely implicated in the case.

The court, in its order, noted that the girl had turned "hostile" and had resiled from her statement made during the probe into the case and later said that she wishes to spend her whole life with accused.

"The prosecutrix (girl) has taken different stands and given different versions of the alleged incident in her statements under section 161 of the CrPC as well as under section 164 of the CrPC and her evidence before the court," the judge said.

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