Delhi court acquits former BSP MP Dhananjay Singh in rape case

New Delhi: Former BSP MP Dhananjay Singh was today acquitted by a Delhi Court of the charges of raping and criminally intimidating a woman after the alleged victim turned hostile. Additional Sessions Judge Sarita Birbal freed Singh, a former MP from Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh, noting that the 42-year-old woman had deposed in the court that she was not sexually assaulted by the politician.

The court closed the evidence in the case and had kept it for pronouncement of final judgement as the woman, a railway employee, had given her testimony contrary to her statements before the police and a magistrate in which she had said she was repeatedly raped by Singh for nearly four years.

Singh, who was out on bail, was represented through advocate S P M Tripathi in the case. According to the sources, the woman, in April this year, had deposed in the court that no harm was done to her by Singh and he did not rape her. In the charge sheet against Singh in the case, the police had alleged that he had repeatedly raped the woman between July 2005 and March 2009.

Referring to the complaint filed by the woman, the police had alleged that the victim was raped several times by Singh at gunpoint and was threatened with dire consequences if she reported the matter.

The woman had said during her deposition that she had lodged the complaint against Singh as he used to interfere in her matrimonial life and her husband had sent her divorce papers in 2009 due to which she was disturbed, sources had said. She had also said she did not want to depose anything against Singh and had made her statement before the magistrate under pressure from her relatives.

Singh was facing trial under various provisions of IPC relating to rape, voluntarily causing hurt and criminal intimidation. The complaint was filed by the woman after the politician and his wife Jagriti Singh, a dental surgeon at a government hospital in Delhi, were arrested in November last year in connection with their maid’s murder, in which two charge sheets were filed by the police.

The police had said the woman had first met Singh in February 2005 through her husband, who was a businessman and was known to the politician. The woman had said in her testimony that she regarded Singh as her brother-in-law. She had said her husband used to continuously fight with her and Singh was behind their marital discord and the divorce notice given by her husband.

In its charge sheet, the police had arraigned 13 persons, including three doctors, as prosecution witnesses. The charge sheet was filed against Singh for offences under various penal provisions of IPC, including 376(2)(h) (rape knowing that a woman is pregnant) and 376 (2)(n) (repeatedly raping the same woman), 377 (unnatural offence), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation).

PTI