Rakesh Bhatnagar/DNA
 
New Delhi, Aug 29: Promiscuity of a rape victim cannot absolve a rapist of his crime, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday in a verdict that should set  a precedent for lower courts to deal with cases of rape and abduction.

“Even if the victim in a given case has been promiscuous in her sexual behaviour earlier, she has a right to refuse to submit herself to sexual intercourse to anyone and everyone because she is not a vulnerable object or prey for being sexually assaulted by anyone and everyone,” a bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and M K Sharma observed while quashing a cryptic judgment by the Allahabad high court, which had acquitted two accused of the charges of abduction and rape.

The apex court referred the case back to the high court, asking it to consider the case in view of the principles laid down by the apex court.

“Even assuming that the victim was previously accustomed to sexual intercourse, that is not a determinative question. On the contrary, the question which was required to be adjudicated was did the accused commit rape on the victim,” the bench said.

“Even if it is hypothetically accepted that the victim had lost her virginity earlier, it did not and cannot in law give licence to any person to rape her. It is the accused who was on trial and not the victim,” the apex court said.

The Supreme Court allowed  the Uttar Pradesh government’s appeal against the high court judgment.

A trial court had convicted the accused but the high court accepted the convicts’ appeal. What annoyed the apex court bench was the brief order passed by high court that didn’t even give any reason that proved the innocence of the accused.

A single-judge bench of the high court had observed: “I have heard the counsel for the parties at length… My attention has been drawn …to the medical evidence on record, which shows that the girl in question was aged about 17 years. She might be thus of 19 years as well.”

“No injury internal or external was found on her body and she was used to sexual intercourse. The girl in question thus appears to be major and was thus a consenting party and there is no reliable evidence on record to show that she was kidnapped by the accused persons or was raped. The girl in question returned home safely on the same day. The learned Court below was not thus justified in believing the prosecution theory and convicting the accused,” the high court judge had said.