HC rejects bail plea in rape case, says the crime “means to inhabit and destroy everything”

34-year-old accused of raping 17-year-old daughter of business partner

While rejecting the bail plea of an accused charged with raping a minor girl, the Bombay High Court said “rape is just not forcible intercourse, it means to inhabit and destroy everything”.

A single Bench of Justice Bharati Dangre was hearing the bail application filed by Amit Patil (34), who has been accused of raping the 17-year-old daughter of his business partner.

The survivor knew Mr. Patil, who is married and has two children, for the past two-and-a-half years. In October 2019, the accused started messaging the girl on WhatsApp and sought sexual favours from her, which she turned down.

On December 6, Mr. Patil sent her a message asking her to meet him the next day to discuss an important matter. He then took her to a farmhouse and threatened to end his life if she did not have sex with him. The accused then raped her twice on separate occasions and warned her that her father’s business would suffer if she disclosed the matter to her parents.

On January 12 this year, the girl confided in her parents and a complaint was filed at Abhiruchi police station in Pune on January 31. The accused was then booked under Sections 376 (punishment for rape), 354-D (stalking), 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) under the Indian Penal Code, and Sections 3 (penetrative sexual assault), 4 (punishment for penetrative sexual assault), 11 (sexual harassment) and 12 (punishment for sexual harassment) of the Protection of Children from the Sexual Offences Act. Soon, a charge sheet was filed in the case.

The court said, “Mr. Patil has taken advantage of the fiduciary relationship, which he shared with the survivor, and put her in a vulnerable situation. Assuming but not accepting that the survivor girl consented for maintaining the physical relationship, her consent is not a free consent. The penal code does not recognise the consent by a minor girl to be a consent in the eyes of law. In the present case, in the backdrop of the narration by the survivor, her consent can naturally be said to be induced by the fiduciary relationship, which she shared and, on that count also, it is not a free consent.”