Bombay HC refuses to quash rape case, calls marriage illegal – Hindustan Times

Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court (HC) has refused to accept illegal second marriage of a lawyer as grounds for striking down his prosecution for raping one of his clients, a woman embroiled in matrimonial dispute.

The division bench of justice Ravindra Ghuge and justice BU Debadwar on Monday dismissed the petition filed by the Jalna-based lawyer praying for quashing of the rape case against him on grounds that he had married the complainant.

Jalna Taluka police station had on October 11, 2020, booked the lawyer for rape on the basis of a complaint lodged by the woman who said she had engaged with the lawyer to seek divorce from her husband.

As they started meeting each other for the purpose of the divorce proceeding, the lawyer informed the woman that he, too, was embroiled in matrimonial dispute with his wife and was seeking divorce from her.

She alleged that the lawyer lured her to reside with him and raped her after promising marriage, and subsequently, started beating and illegally confining her and her son from the first marriage. She said she managed flee from the illegal confinement and approached police.

However, later they settled the dispute amicably, and the lawyer moved HC in December 2020 for quashing of the rape case on that grounds. It was argued on behalf of the lawyer that the petitioner and the complainant thereafter got married and had a girl child. The woman, too, filed an affidavit supporting the lawyer’s claim for quashing the rape case.

HC, however, refused to accept the marital tie as a valid settlement, noticing that both of them — the lawyer and the complainant — had performed the second marriage though their earlier marriages were subsisting.

“In the instant case, the petitioner, alleged rapist, and the informant still have subsisting first marriages, and therefore, we cannot recognise the alleged second marriage between the petitioner and the informant,” said the bench while rejecting the petition.

It added, “We find it quite serious that the petitioner, being an advocate and representing the informant in her divorce petition, claims that the informant is his legally wedded second wife.”