VADODARA: A man, who was living a happy married life with a woman for 10 years, will now live without the tag of being a rape accused.
Incidentally, the man, Chirag Chauhan, had been living the girl, whom he was accused of abducting and raping, and the couple even have a four-year-old child. As the girl was 17 years old then, Chauhan was booked under the charges of kidnapping to force her for marriage and rape after her father lodged a complaint with Jawaharnagar police station in April 2011.
Last week, however, the court discharged him of the allegations of abducting and raping the girl in 2011, who is his wife now. Chauhan was facing trial in the sessions court here.
During the hearing of the case, the woman, whom Chauhan was accused of kidnapping, gave testimony that she was not abducted but had left her parents’ home at her own will as they were planning to marry her off to a 30-year-old man. “She had run away from her house a night before the marriage as she did not want to marry the man and liked my client but her parents were against it,” said Chauhan’s lawyer Nandkishor Shah.
He added that she went to Chauhan’s home and asked him to run away to get married, but he was hesitant initially fearing the repercussions. But later, he agreed when she insisted and they went to Rajasthan. Living in a rented house, Chauhan and the girl had consensual physical relations, Shah said, and when she became an adult, they got married and returned to Vadodara.
“The court upheld her statement that she had left her parents’ home on her own and this boy had not abducted him. Regarding the rape too, she said that it was a consensual relationship and not a forced one,” Shah told TOI.
“The act is considered to be rape, with or without consent if the woman is under 16 years of age, but here she was 17-and-half when they had consensual relation which also the court considered,” the lawyer added.
The court of principal district judge M R Mengdey while discharging Chauhan stated that there is no material available on record to prosecute him for the offences he is accused of.
