Shailesh Sharma vs State Of U.P.
2018 Latest Caselaw 1768 ALL

HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
 
 

?A.F.R.
 

 
Court No. - 48
 

 
Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. BAIL APPLICATION No. - 27819 of 2018
 

 
Applicant :- Shailesh Sharma
 
Opposite Party :- State Of U.P.
 
Counsel for Applicant :- Anil Kumar Ojha
 
Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A.
 

 
Hon'ble Karuna Nand Bajpayee,J.

Shri C.P. Singh has filed power on behalf of informant which is taken on record.

Heard learned counsel for the applicant, learned counsel for the informant and learned A.G.A.

Perused the record.

Submission of learned counsel for the applicant is that victim is admittedly a grown up major lady of 28 years and she is an outgoing working woman having her own business. According to the version given by the victim herself she and the applicant had developed intimate acquaintance with each other and though earlier she was working in another company but later on she decided to come and join the office of the applicant and both of them started working in joint partnership. It has been further alleged that at some later stage the applicant subjected her to sexual coitus under coercion and when she protested, he proposed and assured to marry her. The allegation has been further made that for many months together the applicant continued having sexual relationship with her but she never complained or reported the matter as she was all the time silenced by his marriage proposal in which she believed. According to her she kept insisting upon applicant on regular basis that he should have marriage with her. At some stage a kind of ring ceremony also took place and she had also gone with applicant to a temple to have marriage. But then the applicant preferred to have court marriage and the date of marriage was also fixed in accordance with horoscope. But thereafter according to her she discovered and was told that applicant was already a married person and therefore, she decided to lodge the case against him.

Submission is that totality of the facts and circumstances are such that it sounds highly improbable to suggest that despite having such a long history of intimate relationship the victim would still remain clueless about the married status of the applicant. This is not a case in which the victim was a naive uneducated modest village woman not knowing what is what. To the contrary, she is an educated working woman of the modern world doing active business on her own and the circumstances are strongly suggestive of her being a participating willing partner in the relationship which continued in between the two and the version introduced by the victim about the coercion having been exercised upon her is patently an improvement and an attempt on the part of the victim to embellish and exaggerate. Submission is that even if for the sake of argument we take the version of the victim at its face value, then too it would transpire that though the act and conduct of the applicant may not be vindicated morally and to an extent even legally but the totality of the facts and circumstances are such that all the allegations regarding the applicant being guilty of coercion and the allegation that he committed rape upon the victim against her will or without her consent does not appear to be a credible story. In fact, learned counsel has also drawn the attention of the Court to Annexure-4 and tried to show from it that even on an earlier point of time the victim had lodged a similar report being FIR No.03 of 2017, u/s 328 and 376 I.P.C. against one Adi Sharma alias Ravindra Panchal also, in which virtually identical allegations were made by the victim against the aforesaid Adi Sharma. In that FIR also she had made the insinuations that Adi Sharma had become an intimate friend of her and he had also proposed to have marriage with her and thereafter she was sexually exploited by aforesaid Adi Sharma as she was kept under the promise of marriage and under that promise Adi Sharma made physical relationships with her a number of times. In that case also she had alleged that when she discovered that Adi Sharma was a married person she had lodged the report against him. Learned counsel for the applicant has placed reliance in this regard on Annexure-4 which is the copy of FIR lodged against the aforesaid Adi Sharma. Contention is that strikingly identical version given in the earlier FIR against an altogether different man is sufficient to indicate many things. That the victim has no moral qualms in establishing premarital physical relationships with men is apparently manifest and it is also deducible according to the counsel, that when such men try to back out she lodges reports against them in order to blackmail. Submission of counsel is that men who are not very upright and straight-laced in their moral propensities may be prone to develop such kind of relationships with women who too are not unwilling to form such relationships without inhibitions and who are no great sticklers to the conventional concept of women's chastity. It does not appear to be a case of rank rape and it certainly does not appear to be a case where elements of coercion may be said to have been involved. In fact, the circumstances are indicative of the fact that this grown up major and mature lady who had seen the world enough was herself a consenting woman all the time and not a resisting party. According to the counsel the victim used to visit the applicant's house often and had met his wife for countless times and there was absolutely no question of his married status having remained a secret ever. Contention raised by the counsel is that in fact instead of continuing equal economic partnership in the business, the lady was trying to get a preferential treatment and thereby constantly exploit the applicant economically. It was only when the applicant refused to cough up money and be blackmailed that she has now trumped up this malicious F.I.R. against him which is full of mendacious lies. Several other submissions in order to demonstrate the falsity of the allegations made against the applicant have also been placed forth before the Court. The circumstances which, according to the counsel, led to the false implication of the accused have also been touched upon at length. It has been assured on behalf of the applicant that he is ready to cooperate with the process of law and shall faithfully make himself available before the court whenever required and is also ready to accept all the conditions which the Court may deem fit to impose upon him. It has also been submitted that the applicant is in jail since 3.4.2018 and in the wake of heavy pendency of cases in the Court, there is no likelihood of any early conclusion of trial.

Learned A.G.A. has opposed the prayer for bail.

After perusing the record in the light of the submissions made at the bar and after taking an overall view of all the facts and circumstances of this case, the nature of evidence, the period of detention already undergone, the unlikelihood of early conclusion of trial and also the absence of any convincing material to indicate the possibility of tampering with the evidence, this Court is of the view that the applicant may be enlarged on bail.

Let the applicant- Shailesh Sharma, involved in Case Crime No.143 of 2018, u/s 376, 506 I.P.C., P.S.-Bisrakh, District-Gautam Buddh Nagar, be released on bail on his executing a personal bond and two sureties each in the like amount to the satisfaction of the court concerned on the following conditions :-

(1) The applicant will not make any attempt to tamper with the prosecution evidence in any manner whatsoever.

(2) The applicant will personally appear on each and every date in the court and his personal presence shall not be exempted unless the court itself deems it fit to do so in the interest of justice.

It may be observed that in the event of any breach of the aforesaid conditions, the court below shall be at liberty to proceed for the cancellation of applicant's bail.

It is clarified that the observations, if any, made in this order are strictly confined to the disposal of the bail application and must not be construed to have any reflection on the ultimate merits of the case.

Order Date :- 30.7.2018

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