Victim's Familiarity With Accused, Voluntarily Going To His Room No Ground To Hold Her Responsible For Sexual Assault: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has observed that a woman's familiarity with the accused is no ground to hold her responsible for the alleged sexual assault upon her by the accused.

“Only because the victim had known the accused or that she was in cordial relations with him, will not make her responsible for the sexual assault,” Justice Amit Mahajan said.

The Court was dealing with a plea filed by a complainant— a journalist and PhD student at JNU, challenging a trial court order which made adverse observations against her while admitting the accused on bail in a rape case.

The woman alleged that the accused called her in his hostel and committed sexual assault upon her on two occasions.

Vide the impugned order, the trial court had said that the complainant was an educated girl and was expected to be aware about the consequences of her act. It was also observed that she stayed in the hostel room with her own free will, was confused about her committed long distance relationship but never claimed that the accused had forcible sexual intercourse with her against her consent.

Allowing her plea against this order, Justice Mahajan said that the observations in question were not warranted as they were in the nature of imputing doubts on the character of the victim.

“Concededly, no person has right to sexually assault the victim for the reason that she voluntarily came to his room,” the Court said.

It added that the trauma of the victim ought not to have been trivialised by such observations and that the veracity of the same are to be seen during the course of trail and ought not to have been made at the time of admitting the accused to bail.

The Court thus modified the trial court order to the extent of setting aside the impugned observations.

Title: X v. STATE GOVT NCT OF DELHI AND ANOTHER & ANR

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 1260

Click Here To Read Order