PLEA AGAINST FAROOQUI NIXED
The SC dismissed a petition filed by a US-based researcher challenging the acquittal of writer and Peepli Live co-director, Mahmood Farooqui, by the Delhi high court on charges of rape, calling it a well-reasoned order.
NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a criminal appeal filed by a US-based researcher challenging the acquittal of writer and Peepli Live co-director, Mahmood Farooqui, by the Delhi high court on charges of rape, calling it a well-reasoned order.
“Such cases are hard cases to be decided in criminal law. It’s a well-reasoned order and we think it does not require our interference,” a bench of justice SA Bobde and justice LN Rao told advocate Vrinda Grover, who argued on behalf of the victim.
The court was not even inclined to issue notice to hear Farooqui.
Grover’s effort to convince the court that the high court verdict had wrongly interpreted the law and would have major ramifications in rape cases failed to convince the apex court. She urged the court to let the question of law remain open.
But the bench was not persuaded and said, “No, there are no questions of law. Each case is decided on facts.”
Justice Ashutosh Kumar of Delhi HC had on September 26, 2017, accepted Farooqui’s appeal against his conviction in the case that was lodged against him in 2015. A special fast track court in Saket found the director guilty of forcing oral sex upon the victim.
The high court disbelieved the victim’s version that there was no consent. It said the woman had failed to communicate her denial of consent and her “no” was not affirmative but “feeble”.
The judge underlined the past relationship between the two to hold that it may have been difficult for Farooqui to decipher that little or no resistance and a feeble no was actually denial of consent.
The judgment had drawn flak from women’s rights activists who said it redefined consent.