This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.

Order On Mahmood Farooqui Dishonest On Fact And In Law, Says Survivor's Counsel Vrinda Grover

"We will move the Supreme Court challenging the acquittal order."
Hindustan Times via Getty Images

Even as there is was a huge uproar over the acquittal of Mahmood Farooqui -- co-director of of Bollywood film Peepli Live -- in a rape case involving a US researcher, the counsel of the survivor Vrinda Grover has called the court "dishonest on fact" and said that they will approach the Supreme Court.

Grover told Indian Express, "We have read the judgment. It is dishonest on fact and in law. We will move the Supreme Court challenging the acquittal order."

A trial court had awarded a seven-year jail term to Farooqui after convicting him for the rape of the 30-year-old woman at his south Delhi residence in March 2015.

Other senior lawyers have also criticised the order.

Senior lawyer Rebecca John told The Times of India, "I am deeply concerned with the language.It is an absolutely incorrect interpretation of consent, which has statutorily been defined already . The judge has gone legally untenable. The language used is neither legal, nor factual. This is the same misogynistic response we have fought for years."

In his order, Justice Ashutosh Kumar, cast a doubt on whether the incident described by the woman took place at all.

The order said, "Instances of woman behavior are not unknown that a feeble 'no' may mean a 'yes'. If the parties are strangers, the same theory may not be applied...But same would not be the situation when parties are known to each other, are persons of letters and and are intellectually/academically proficient, and if, in the past, there have been physical contacts. In such cases, it would be really difficult to decipher whether little or no resistance and a feeble 'no', was actually a denial of consent."

The trial court had in 2016 sent him Farooqui to jail for seven years, observing that he had taken advantage of the situation when the victim was alone in his house.

The court, which on 30 July 2016 had held Farooqui guilty of raping the American woman in 2015 in a drunken state, had also imposed a fine of ₹50,000 on him. Farooqui had challenged his conviction and the sentence given by the trial court.

Close
This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.