New Delhi: Quoting Charles John Darling (1849-1936), an English lawyer and politician, a Delhi court recently stated that “perjury is often bold and open. It is truth that is shamefaced.” The court directed the initiation of perjury proceedings against a woman for filing a false case of rape in 2022.
While acquitting the man accused of rape, criminal intimidation, assaulting a woman with the intent to disrobe her, outraging a woman’s modesty, and sexual harassment, the court of additional sessions judge Anuj Agrawal observed that it was a case of a honey trap wherein the victim entrapped the accused in a pre-planned manner to extort money from him.
The judge noted that the testimony of the prosecutrix was not only full of contradictions but was also inherently inconsistent, tainted, and full of concoctions. Further observing that it was evident from the record that the woman made a false statement before the court, the court said that a simple acquittal could not compensate for the hapless accused’s agony as the false accusation of rape had the potential to tarnish his reputation and destroy his soul.
“I am reminded of one famous English poem which rhymes as ‘The song of the meek, will darken any brow, as they cry aloud and beseech justice.’ But how to find strength, to do the right, so that the meek shall also survive is the question before this court? The answer perhaps lies in hearing not only the shrieks of a complainant but also the unheard cries of a person standing before this court with folded hands beseeching justice for a crime that he never committed, which got louder as the lies of the prosecutrix got manifested with the progression of the trial,” the judge said.
Further observing that the oath taken by a witness was a solemn appeal to the deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury, the judge remarked, “Since it is evident from the record that the prosecutrix betrayed the solemn oath (she took in the witness box) and treaded on a treacherous path of perjury, therefore let a complaint under Section 379 of Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita for offences of perjury be sent against her to the court of chief judicial magistrate (central).”
