New Delhi: A youth has been acquitted of kidnapping and raping a girl with a Delhi court saying that the alleged victim's statement was "unreliable" and that the courts should not be swayed by the media reports. "It should not be ignored that the court has to confine itself to the ambit of law and the contents of the file as well as the testimonies of the witnesses and is not to be swayed by emotions or reporting in the media," said Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Nivedita Anil Sharma, while acquitting the accused She made the observation while dealing with a case of kidnapping and rape of a girl in 2010.
"It would not be out of place to mention here that today there is a hue and cry being raised everywhere that courts are not convicting the rape accused. However, no man, accused of rape, can be convicted if the witnesses do not support the prosecution case or give quality evidence, as in the present case where the evidence of the prosecutrix is unreliable and untrustworthy," the court said.
According to the prosecution, Uttam Nagar resident Satbir Singh had kidnapped the girl in November 2012 and had also raped her. During the trial, Singh had rebutted the entire evidence against him and said he was falsely implicated in the case.
The court, in its order, noted that the girl had turned "hostile" and had resiled from her statement made during the probe into the case and later said that she wishes to spend her whole life with accused.
"The prosecutrix (girl) has taken different stands and given different versions of the alleged incident in her statements under section 161 of the CrPC as well as under section 164 of the CrPC and her evidence before the court," the judge said.
The police had said the girl's father had registered an FIR and had suspected that Singh had abducted his daughter. Singh was a student in the same school in which the girl was studying and he had proposed to marry her and after the girl refused his proposal, he took her to Bulandshehar in Uttar Pradesh, it had said.
The girl's father had told the court also that after he lodged an FIR in this regard, he received a call from the police station that his daughter and Singh have came there.
The court, while acquitting the accused, said the girl's deposition cannot be treated as "trustworthy and reliable" and the police has also failed to establish that she was a minor.
"In the present case also, there is no material on record that the prosecutrix (girl) was taken or enticed or lured or forced by the accused or raped. There is also no material on record to show that accused (Singh) deceitfully took away the prosecutrix," it said.
"From the above discussion, it is clear that the evidence of the prosecution is neither reliable nor believable and is not trustworthy and the prosecution has failed to establish kidnapping or rape," the court said adding "it appears from the evidence that it is not a case of kidnapping but of elopement."
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