Apex court upholds acquittal of Peepli Live director in rape case
new delhi — Peepli Live co-director Mahmood Farooqui on Friday got a major relief from the Supreme Court which dismissed an American woman’s plea challenging a Delhi High Court verdict acquitting him in a rape case.
The top court said they were “good friends” and she had even expressed her “love” to him after the alleged incident.
It also said the woman appeared to have responded in a “positive manner” when they had met on the day of alleged incident and it was a case of “relationship” in which they have known each other.
The apex court referred to the email communications between the 30-year-old woman and Farooqui and asked her counsel how could the woman say “I love you” in her mail to the accused after the alleged 2015 incident, which she later termed as rape.
A bench comprising Justices S A Bobde and L Nageswara Rao observed that the high court’s verdict of September 25 last year acquitting Farooqui was a “well written judgment” warranting no interference.
“We are not satisfied (with her arguments). We will not interfere with the high court verdict. It is a well-written judgement,” the bench told advocate Vrinda Grover, who was representing the woman.
Farooqui was earlier convicted and sentenced to 7-year jail term by a trial court here in August 2016. However, the high court had acquitted him in the case last year.
The Delhi Police had on June 19, 2015, lodged an FIR against Farooqui on the woman’s complaint.
The police had filed a charge
How many rape cases you have gone through where the prosecutrix (woman) has said ‘I love you’ to the alleged accused much after the alleged incident. Supreme Court
sheet against him alleging he had raped the research scholar from Columbia University at his Sukhdev Vihar house in South Delhi on March 28, 2015.
Farooqui had denied all the allegations.
During the hearing, the top court asked her counsel, “How many rape cases you have gone through where the prosecutrix (woman) has said ‘I love you’ to the alleged accused much after the alleged incident.”
The bench observed that it was not a case where strangers came, met and did something as both Farooqui and the woman were known to each other.
“It is a case of relationship. They were known to each other,” the bench said, adding, “This is a very hard case. We would like to say that it has been decided extremely well (by the high court). It is not a case which can be decided easily”.
When the counsel said both the woman and Farooqui were known to each other, the bench asked, “according to her evidence, they had drinks together. The point is they knew each other, had drinks together and did many other things together”. Referring to the high court’s verdict, Grover said the judgement said she was a “sterling witness” and the issue was of consent. She also argued that the woman had said ‘no’ to Farooqui’s advance towards her. “But initially ‘yes’. There appeared to be a positive response by her which according to her was faked. People give false smiles. How would the other person know it is a false response. This is very difficult to understand,” the bench said, adding that the high court had also observed that it was not reflected that she was saying ‘no’.
However, her counsel claimed in the court that during the alleged incident, the woman was afraid that “something bad” would happen with her as he had become forcefull.
The bench then referred to the e-mail exchanged between the woman and Farooqui and said the records showed they were very good friends.
The court also asked the counsel as to how many times the woman had visited Farooqui’s house and had drinks together. — PTI