Delhi court acquits man in rape case saying woman had 'adequate intelligence' to consent to relations

New Delhi: A Delhi court has acquitted a man of the charge of raping his sister-in-law, saying relations between them were consensual and the woman had “adequate intelligence” to understand what she had consented to. The court, while letting off the man, said they both were married and knew they could not wed each other without getting a divorce from their respective spouses. [caption id=“attachment_3206342” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AP[/caption] In his order, Additional Sessions Judge Sanjiv Jain said the facts and circumstances of the case showed that the woman and the accused were closely related. “They were already married with their spouses living. From the beginning they knew that they had not taken divorce from their spouses and their marriage was not possible,” he said. “They were in a live­-in relationship for a long time. During that period, they made physical relations. The woman had adequate intelligence to understand the significance with the acts she was consenting to,” Jain said. The judge said that the accused and the complainant, a native of 24 North Parganas district in West Bengal, willingly developed physical relationship and the woman’s consent for the physical relations was an “act of her conscious decision”. According to the prosecution, the woman got married to the accused’s brother in 1999 and after she delivered a child in 2000, her husband left her. She then came to Delhi with her brother-in-law, the accused, who found her a job in New Delhi. Soon they developed physical relations with each other, it said. However, later the accused began to harass her and avoid her, she alleged in her complaint. The accused denied the allegations and claimed he was falsely implicated by her.