FACTS IN BRIEF :- The Respondent was the student of the Baptist College , Kohima where the Appellant was a lecturer. The Appellant used to visit the home of the respondent often and voluntarily confessed his love for her. The respondent was blinded by the false assurances of marriage given by the Appellant and agreed to have conjugal relationship with the accused and as a result thereof became pregnant. Thereon the Respondent being afraid of a social scandal started pressurizing the Appellant to marry her. Upon this the Appellant ‘married’ her in front of the God he worshipped in his home by applying sindur to her forehead and accepting her as his legally wedded wife.
After these incidents, the accused kept on trying to convince the respondent that she should get the child aborted and on her not getting convinced he used the plea that his parents would not get convinced to accept her as the daughter-in-law if they had the child, as a result the respondent was compelled to undergo an abortion. That the same story was repeated in April 1994 and here the Appellant even misrepresented himself as ‘Bikash Gautan’ at the nursing home in Dimapur where the Respondent was taken for her abortion. The Respondent believed herself as the legally wedded wife of the Appellant in full faith and never once questioned the excuses given by the Appellant. On hearing that the Appellant was going to Silchar to join the job at the government college that they both had been waiting for so that they could make their marriage known in public, the Respondent went to meet him to be taken along with him, wherein the Appellant refused point blank to accept their relationship.
Thereafter the respondent brought an action against the Appellant on the grounds of criminal offences under the Indian Penal Code, Sections 312, 420, 493, 496 and 498A. On these facts a special leave petition was filed by the appellant against the order of the High Court of Assam at Guwahati which declined to dismiss the criminal case filed by the Respondent against the Appellant.
ARGUMENTS:- The Appellant sought to evade the cases on the ground that (a) the Appellant was unemployed, his service having been terminated from the Government College at Silchar and (b) the whole case had no factual basis, but was cooked up to defame him.
JUDGMENT:- The Supreme Court upholding the decision of the High Court refused to quash the proceedings of the pending criminal case dismissed the petition while also awarding an interim maintenance of Rs. 1,000/- per month to the Respondent. The question before the Court, ‘whether the Court was competent to pass any further orders in the present case and compel the present Appellant to pay interim maintenance to the Respondent during the pendency of the Criminal Trial’ was decided positively on the ground that the Supreme Court enjoyed a wide range of jurisdictions under Article 32 of the Constitution of and it included the power to award compensation for the violation of the Fundamental Rights as well.
The Court also declared that the crime of ‘Rape’ was not only a penal cause of action but one that was a crime against the basic human rights and was a violation of the most cherished Right to Life of the victim. Therefore relying upon the decision in of Delhi Domestic Working Women’s Forum v. Union of India ((1995) 1 SCC 14) the Court concluded that while trying the case relating to the Penal offence of Rape, a court had the jurisdiction to award compensation at the final stage and also there was no bar as to award interim compensation.
FOR COMMON MAN:- This case lays down the law that interim compensation can be awarded to victims of rape during trials considering the gravity of the situation and in the interests of justice. Thus it marks a progressive shift in criminal law jurisprudence wherein a victimological approach has been introduced in adjudicatory process.
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