New Delhi: She went to the police in 2015 alleging that five men had gang-raped her. The police later accused her of consensual sex for money and trying to extort the men, even charging her under anti-trafficking laws. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has now quashed those trafficking charges.
The case began on the night of September 19, 2015, when the woman, waiting for an auto near Sector 43 in Chandigarh to travel to Zirakpur to meet her husband, accepted a lift from two men on a motorcycle. She alleged that the men took her to a house in Banur, forced her to drink liquor and raped her. Three more men allegedly joined them later, according to her complaint.
The woman was eventually found locked inside the house. She named Mandeep Singh and four others in her complaint, following which police registered a case under sections 376-D (gang rape) and 342 (wrongful confinement) of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The investigation, however, took the case in an altogether different direction.
Police concluded she had gone to Banur voluntarily and that the sex was consensual and paid for. They further alleged that she, along with her husband and others including Ajaib Singh, had attempted to extort money from the accused men by threatening them with a false rape case.
The woman who initially filed a rape complaint found herself named in the chargesheet. She was charged under Sections 3, 4 and 5 of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act (ITPA) as well as Sections 384 and 120-B of the IPC for extortion and criminal conspiracy.
A trial court framed charges against her in February 2018. She and Ajaib Singh challenged the order in a revision petition before the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
Justice Manisha Batra examined Sections 4 and 5 of the ITPA and found that the provisions did not apply to the woman on the allegations made by the prosecution. Section 4 deals with a person who knowingly lives, wholly or partly, on the earnings of the prostitution of another woman or girl.
The court noted the prosecution’s own case was that the woman had herself engaged in sex for money. There was no allegation that she was living off the earnings of another woman’s prostitution.
Section 5 fared no better. The provision requires an act directed at another woman or girl, procuring her, inducing her, or moving her for prostitution. No such role had been attributed to the petitioner. “Consequently, even the basic ingredients of Section 5 are not attracted against petitioner,” the court held.
The judge was clear that framing of charge does not need a full trial-level appreciation of evidence, but it does require the material to disclose the basic ingredients of the offence charged. A penal section named in a chargesheet is not enough on its own.
The court found that the prosecution’s allegation that she, in connivance with Ajaib Singh and others, had demanded and received money from the families of the accused men by threatening them with the rape case was sufficient at this stage to make out a prima facie case under Sections 384 (extortion) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.
Ajaib Singh’s charge under Section 384 was also upheld. The court referred to allegations that he had demanded Rs 4 lakh from one family and had actually received Rs 1 lakh and Rs 5,000 from two others. Whether the money was actually exchanged, and whether the witnesses’ accounts are credible, are matters to be determined at trial, the judge said.
The High Court’s ruling, therefore, removed the ITPA charges against the woman but did not end the criminal case against her. The allegations of extortion and criminal conspiracy will continue to be examined at trial.
(Edited by Prakhar Agrawal)
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