CHANDIGAHR – The court of additional district and sessions judge Anshu Shukla has sentenced a 30-year-old resident of Sector-44 to seven years in jail for raping a woman six years elder to him.
The accused, Virat Kumar, and his mother had been booked under Sections 376 (punishment for rape) and 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) last year. The mother was acquitted.
The defence counsel said that Kumar, who has worked as a clerk with the BBMB (Bhakra Beas Management Board), had been held guilty only on the basis of the testimony of the victim. After the police had failed to lodge a first-information report (FIR), the woman filed an application before the court through an advocate.
At this, the court directed the UT Police to register a case last year. Finally, the mother and son duo were booked after investigation.
The woman and the convict had met through a common friend in 2011 when Kumar was looking for a buyer for his two-wheeler. Soon, they befriended each other and were involved in a relationship for over two years.
Sources said the woman, who belonged to a Scheduled Caste, had claimed that when she asked Kumar to marry her, after they had been going steady for over two years, he refused. The reason cited was that his mother did not approve of the woman, as she was from the SC category.
The police added Section 420 (cheating) to the FIR against Kumar’s mother after the woman claimed that she had initially agreed to their marriage, but had later backed out.
During court arguments, it was claimed that the convict had promised to marry the woman only to get into an intimate relationship with her.
