‘Shameful act’: Bombay HC to man convicted of raping his mother-in-law
A single bench of Justice G A Sanap noted that it was a shameful act and the victim was like a mother to him.
The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court on Tuesday upheld the conviction of a man for raping his mother-in-law, reported PTI.
A single bench of Justice G A Sanap noted that it was a shameful act and the victim was like a mother to him.
The convict had challenged a 2022 judgment of a sessions court convicting and sentencing him to 14 years in jail for the rape of his 55-year-old mother-in-law in December 2018.
The woman had alleged that her son-in-law and daughter were separated and that her two grandchildren used to live with their father.
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On the day of the alleged incident, the accused visited the woman, where he quarrelled with her and asked her to help reunite her daughter with him. On the accused's compulsion, the victim went with him to his house. However, she claims that man got drunk and raped the woman three times, according to PTI.
The woman then informed about the incident to her daughter and who then lodged a police complaint.
While approaching the high court, the man in his appeal claimed that he was implicated in a false rape case and that it was a consensual sexual relationship.
The high court, however, refused to accept this contention and said the victim at the time of the incident was 55 years old and asserted that she would not invite such a stigma on her character by levelling false allegations.
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"Reporting of such a matter to the police invites stigmatic consequences. If it was a consensual act, then she would not have at all reported the incident to the police. If it was a consensual act, then she would not have even disclosed the same to her daughter," the HC said, according to PTI.
The bench also said that the woman would have never imagined that her son-in-law would commit such a deplorable act.
"It is to be noted that the appellant (convict), who is the son-in-law of the prosecutrix (complainant), has committed this shameful act with his mother-in-law, who is the age of his own mother. The appellant defiled the womanhood of the prosecutrix," it said.
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"The appellant took advantage of his relations with the prosecutrix. The prosecutrix would not have imagined in the wildest of dreams that her son-in-law would commit such a deplorable act with her," it added.