Victim's plea challenging Hiremath's bail dismissed

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea moved by the 22-year-old victim in the Varun Hiremath rape case, challenging an earlier Delhi High Court order granting him anticipatory bail, while orally remarking that "if a man and woman are in a room and the man makes a request and woman complies, was there anything else to say?"

A vacation bench of Justices Navin Sinha and Ajay Rastogi were hearing the Special Leave Petition challenging the Delhi High Court order, where senior advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan, appearing for the petitioner, argued that the High Court virtually granted the benefit of doubt solely based on the selective reading of the Section 164 statement of the petitioner woman.

The counsel also argued that Hiremath had evaded arrest for 50 days and that the whole family had left their house after the incident. Non-bailable warrants issued against the accused were also ignored, the lawyer argued.

"...the question is of normal human conduct, behaviour and understanding. If a man and woman are in a room and the man makes a request and the woman complies with it, do we need to say anything more at this stage?" the bench remarked.

However, advocate Ramakrishnan submitted that for each and every act there has to be an unequivocal consent and when there is a particular act and one says no to it and it's a penetrative act, "then it's not consent".

However, the bench stated that it was deciding on the larger aspect of anticipatory bail and these issues will be decided during the trial. "The High Court has drawn a semantic difference between insistence and force. Even after disrobing, before the penetration, she pushed him away, said no multiple times, vomited all over him but he insisted," the lawyer argued.

She argued that the penetrative act constituting an offence was entirely without her consent and hence why shouldn't Hiremath comply with even one day's custodial interrogation?

Following this, the bench stated that it was not inclined to interfere with the anticipatory bail granted to the accused and dismissed the plea.