The Supreme Court today refused to interfere with the judgment of the Delhi High Court acquitting Director Mahmood Farooqui of rape charges..When the matter came up for hearing before a Bench of Justices SA Bobde and L Nageswara Rao, it was observed that the judgment delivered by Justice Ashutosh Kumar was “very well reasoned and cannot be interfered with”..Advocate Vrinda Grover, appearing for the appellant, questioned the High Court judgment on the ground that there was absence of consent on the victim’s part..The Bench observed that the two individuals had met before and were in a relationship. Grover replied by saying that the nature of relationship was different..During the course of the hearing, which lasted for approximately half an hour, the Bench asked a slew of questions to Grover, including,.“How many times did they have drinks together?”.Grover replied that having drinks with a man does not affirm consent. To which the Bench replied,.“We are not judging on that.”.Grover also apprised the Bench of the fact that the victim had been held as a “sterling witness” and contended that with the latest amendment in Criminal Law, the definition of rape has been redefined and includes the crystallized definition of consent..The Bench then asked,.“Did she communicate [consent]?”.“No”, was Grover’s reply..“Initially yes. There was possibility that the person was unable to interpret it”, the Bench countered..The judges also asked various questions on the nature of the relationship between Farooqui and the victim, the number of times the two met, and a few questions about the evidence. Some of the questions asked were,.“Why did she send an ‘I Love You’ message to the accused after the incident? .Which rape victim will send that to an accused?”.In the end, the Bench refused to interfere with the Delhi High Court judgment, and declined to entertain the plea..Farooqui was sentenced to seven years in prison by a Special Fast Track Court in Saket after he was found guilty of forcing oral sex upon a foreign national in 2015. However, the High Court set aside the conviction, giving Farooqui the “benefit of the doubt”..The judgment had drawn the ire of women’s rights activists, who termed it as a decision that redefined consent. Justice Kumar had held in his judgment,.“Instances of woman behavior are not unknown that a feeble ‘no’ may mean a ‘yes’. If the parties are strangers, the same theory may not be applied…But same would not be the situation when parties are known to each other, are persons of letters and are intellectually/academically proficient, and if, in the past, there have been physical contacts. In such cases, it would be really difficult to decipher whether little or no resistance and a feeble ‘no’, was actually a denial of consent.”.In his verdict, Justice Kumar went into the theories of consent, and stated that the affirmative model, where ‘yes’ is ‘yes’ and ‘no’ is ‘no’, may not be used in all cases..“There would be some difficulty in a universal acceptance of the aforesaid model of consent, as in certain cases, there can be an affirmative consent, or a positive denial, but it may remain underlying/dormant which could lead to confusion in the mind of the other….… In an act of passion, actuated by libido, there could be myriad circumstances which can surround a consent and it may not necessarily always mean yes in case of yes or no in case of no…”.As lawyer Rupali Samuel writes here,.“The judgement holds up a mirror to us to ask whether consent between known persons is too murky a ground for us to adjudicate via the vehicle of the adversarial criminal trial? Even as the Judge reaffirms that the prosecutrix is a ‘sterling witness,’ the judgement is very transparent about his struggle to understand how to pin responsibility in this case.”.Read petition:
The Supreme Court today refused to interfere with the judgment of the Delhi High Court acquitting Director Mahmood Farooqui of rape charges..When the matter came up for hearing before a Bench of Justices SA Bobde and L Nageswara Rao, it was observed that the judgment delivered by Justice Ashutosh Kumar was “very well reasoned and cannot be interfered with”..Advocate Vrinda Grover, appearing for the appellant, questioned the High Court judgment on the ground that there was absence of consent on the victim’s part..The Bench observed that the two individuals had met before and were in a relationship. Grover replied by saying that the nature of relationship was different..During the course of the hearing, which lasted for approximately half an hour, the Bench asked a slew of questions to Grover, including,.“How many times did they have drinks together?”.Grover replied that having drinks with a man does not affirm consent. To which the Bench replied,.“We are not judging on that.”.Grover also apprised the Bench of the fact that the victim had been held as a “sterling witness” and contended that with the latest amendment in Criminal Law, the definition of rape has been redefined and includes the crystallized definition of consent..The Bench then asked,.“Did she communicate [consent]?”.“No”, was Grover’s reply..“Initially yes. There was possibility that the person was unable to interpret it”, the Bench countered..The judges also asked various questions on the nature of the relationship between Farooqui and the victim, the number of times the two met, and a few questions about the evidence. Some of the questions asked were,.“Why did she send an ‘I Love You’ message to the accused after the incident? .Which rape victim will send that to an accused?”.In the end, the Bench refused to interfere with the Delhi High Court judgment, and declined to entertain the plea..Farooqui was sentenced to seven years in prison by a Special Fast Track Court in Saket after he was found guilty of forcing oral sex upon a foreign national in 2015. However, the High Court set aside the conviction, giving Farooqui the “benefit of the doubt”..The judgment had drawn the ire of women’s rights activists, who termed it as a decision that redefined consent. Justice Kumar had held in his judgment,.“Instances of woman behavior are not unknown that a feeble ‘no’ may mean a ‘yes’. If the parties are strangers, the same theory may not be applied…But same would not be the situation when parties are known to each other, are persons of letters and are intellectually/academically proficient, and if, in the past, there have been physical contacts. In such cases, it would be really difficult to decipher whether little or no resistance and a feeble ‘no’, was actually a denial of consent.”.In his verdict, Justice Kumar went into the theories of consent, and stated that the affirmative model, where ‘yes’ is ‘yes’ and ‘no’ is ‘no’, may not be used in all cases..“There would be some difficulty in a universal acceptance of the aforesaid model of consent, as in certain cases, there can be an affirmative consent, or a positive denial, but it may remain underlying/dormant which could lead to confusion in the mind of the other….… In an act of passion, actuated by libido, there could be myriad circumstances which can surround a consent and it may not necessarily always mean yes in case of yes or no in case of no…”.As lawyer Rupali Samuel writes here,.“The judgement holds up a mirror to us to ask whether consent between known persons is too murky a ground for us to adjudicate via the vehicle of the adversarial criminal trial? Even as the Judge reaffirms that the prosecutrix is a ‘sterling witness,’ the judgement is very transparent about his struggle to understand how to pin responsibility in this case.”.Read petition:
