PTI
 
New Delhi, May 22: A Ph.D scholar from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), charged with raping his girlfriend after intoxicating her four years ago, has been sentenced to five years' rigorous imprisonment by a court.

Taking strong exception to conduct of Gufran Mustafa, then pursuing Ph.D from the elite university, additional sessions judge S P Garg said: "The prosecutrix was honest enough to admit the fact of her having established physical relations with the accused prior to the incident. However, the said relations were made with her free consent and he had no license to violate her privacy as and when he wished".

Relying on the well-corroborated testimony of the 20-year-old victim, the judge refused aspersions on her character caste by the defence, saying, "Mustafa was a student doing his Ph.D. The acts of establishing physical relationship with the prosecutrix prior to the incident can equally be a reflection on his character also".

The court, in a recent order, declined the suggestion that the accused was roped in the false case by the victim's father as Mustafa had refused to marry his daughter and said that no father could stoop so low as to bring forth a false charge of rape on his unmarried daughter with a view to taking revenge.

"The defence plea defies human probabilities," it said, noting that the negotiations for marriage between the two had broken much before the incident and no other ulterior motive behind implicating him could be proved.