The Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal filed against the acquittal of Peepli Live director Mahmood Farooqui with respect to an alleged rape case that happened in 2015.
The apex court has rejected the plea filed by the 30-year-old rape survivor, saying it would not interfere with the high court’s “well-written judgement”.
Supreme Court today dismissed the appeal filed against the acquittal of Peepli Live director Mahmood Farooqui in a 2015 alleged rape case pic.twitter.com/2FZ5fp7rmh
— ANI (@ANI) January 19, 2018
During the hearing, the woman’s counsel told the bench that a new argument of alleged consensual relation was advanced by Farooqui’s lawyer before the high court and claimed that this issue was not raised before the lower court during the trial.
The Supreme Court, however, observed that the case is hard considering Farooqui and the woman knew each other. “People give false smiles. How would the other person know that it’s a false response? This is very difficult to understand. She appeared to have responded in a positive manner,” the Supreme Court bench reportedly said.
In September last year, the Delhi High Court had acquitted Farooqui, who was accused of raping an American woman.
Farooqui had challenged the trial court order in the high court claiming his innocence. The judgment had also stated that “No” might not always mean no and that there were examples of “woman’s behaviour (where)… a feeble ‘no’ may mean a ‘yes’,” in cases of past intimacy.
Farooqui was accused of raping a 35-year-old woman from Columbia University who was in India for research on her doctoral thesis.
Recommended
The woman, who moved to Delhi in June 2014, was looking for contacts for her work in Gorakhpur and had come in contact with Farooqui through a common friend.
The alleged incident occurred on March 28, 2015 when Farooqui invited her for dinner at his house.
According to the chargesheet, the woman found Farooqui in an intoxicated state when she reached his house. He then asked her to go to the other room which was his office.
After 20 minutes, she left the office room to smoke in the porch when he told her to come in and sit down. After talking to her for a while, he suddenly kissed her and forced himself on her, the prosecution said.
Feature Image: BBC