Person Having Consensual Physical Relationship Not Required To Judicially Scrutinse Other Person's Date Of Birth: Delhi High Court

"The person, who is in a consensual physical relationship with another person, is not required to judicially scrutinise the date of birth of the other person," the Delhi High Court has observed.

Justice Jasmeet Singh made the observation while granting bail to a man accused in a rape case. The complainant had alleged that after becoming friends, in September 2019, the petitioner called her to a hotel and established a physical relationship with her and also made her video, thereby blackmailing her.

The complainant further alleged that the petitioner forced her to have physical relationships with different people under the threat of releasing the video.

It was also alleged that around August, 2021, the complainant managed to escape from the petitioner's house where she was held captive, after which she met an advocate who helped her lodging the FIR.

On the other hand, it was the petitioner's case that the date of incident as alleged was September, 2019, whereas the FIR was filed after three years in 2022.

It was also claimed that the prosecutrix had 4 different dates of birth. According to the petitioner, the date of birth of prosecutrix in the Aadhar Card was January 1, 1998 whereas as per the PAN card, the same was February 25, 2004.

It was submitted that as per the verification done by the State, the date of birth of prosecutrix was June 1, 2005. In this backdrop, it was argued that the prosecutrix was giving her date of birth as per her own convenience, only to invoke the provisions of POCSO Act against him.

It was also alleged that the the prosecutrix was extorting money from the petitioner and when he refused to comply with her illegal demands, the FIR was filed after a delay of 3 years.

Furthermore, the petitioner had argued that the investigation of the police was shoddy and that the financial transactions showing deposit of money by the petitioner was not investigated.

It was also stated that the Aadhar of the complainant was verified and that there was no investigation as to the multiple Instagram accounts of the prosecutrix.

Noting that there was "much more than what meets the eye", the Court observed:

"As per the prosecutrix's own showing and as the case stated in the FIR, she has had relationship with the applicant from 2019. If the applicant had blackmailed the prosecutrix, there was nothing preventing her from approaching the police at an earlier stage"

It was added that the allegation of blackmailing on the pretext of a video did not inspire Court's confidence, as the prosecutrix had not stated in the FIR that it was a forced physical relationship between the petitioner and her.

"The person, who is in a consensual physical relationship with another person, is not required to judicially scrutinise the date of birth of the other person. He is not required to see Aadhar card, PAN card and verify the date of birth from her school record before he enters into a physical relationship. The very fact that there is an Aadhar Card and the very fact that the same shows date of birth as 01.01.1998 is sufficient for the applicant to form an opinion that he was not indulging in physical relationship with a minor," the Court said.

Noting that there were transfers of huge amounts of money in favour of the prosecutrix, the Court also opined that status report filed by State showed that it failed to investigate the said aspect.

"This Hon'ble Court in one bail application being BAIL APPL. 2813/2020 titled 'Kapil Gupta vs. State' has noticed that there are cases where innocent persons are being honey trapped and huge amounts of money are being extracted from them. This Court had directed Commissioner of Police to personally look into the matter and investigate such cases of honey trapping. I am, prima facie, of the view that this also seems to be a case of such incident," the Court observed.

The Court thus directed the Commissioner of Police to have a detailed investigation as regards the prosecutrix if any such similar FIR was registered by her against any other person in the city.

With the aforesaid observations, the Court granted bail to the petitioner.

Title: HANZLA IQBAL v. THE STATE & ANR.

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Del) 806

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