Mere friendship with girl doesn’t give man right to have sex without consent: Delhi high court

NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court has said that mere friendship with a girl does not entitle a man to have sexual intercourse with her without consent, while refusing bail to a man accused of repeatedly raping a minor.Justice Girish Kathpalia, in an order dated July 24, dismissed the man’s claim of consensual relations and pointed out that even consent would not be legally valid when the survivor is a minor.“Merely because a girl befriends a boy, the latter cannot be given liberty to indulge into sexual intercourse with her without her consent. Further, even the consent would not be lawful in the present case because the prosecutrix was minor in age,” the court observed.The court noted that the FIR and the girl’s statement alleged repeated sexual assault despite her protestations. It said the nature of the allegations ruled out the possibility of a consensual relationship.“I am unable to find it a case of consensual relations merely because in the FIR the prosecutrix stated that the accused/applicant with his sweet talk befriended her,” the judge added.Calling it “not a fit case to grant bail to the accused”, the court rejected the man’s application.According to the prosecution, the accused — a construction labourer working in NDMC flats in Vikaspuri — befriended the girl in April 2023 and subsequently raped her. He allegedly threatened her against disclosing the assaults, which continued till November 2023.The man, however, claimed that the girl was a major at the time and that the relationship was consensual.The court rejected this argument, referring to the girl’s school records which established her age as a minor during the period of assault. It also said that one “handpicked line” from the testimony of the girl’s mother could not be read in isolation of the rest of the evidence.It further noted that a detailed scrutiny of evidence was not permissible at the stage of bail.