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Ahmedabad: Fourteen years after a rape complaint was filed, a fast-track special court here has acquitted a rape accused because the only witness who turned up to testify was a police constable. The cop knew nothing about the case and told the court he had been posted for only one and a half years at the police station where the complaint was lodged. Upon entering the witness box, head constable Ganpatbhai Solanki of the Naroda police station could only identify the seal put on the documents by police. He could affirm that the investigation in the case was conducted by police inspector M K Patel. Apart from these sketchy details, the prosecution could not bring any material witness, including the complainant, to the trial. Even the presence of the accused could not be secured for the trial. The court decided to go ahead with the trial and appointed a legal aid defence counsel to represent the absent accused. As for the case, the complainant filed an FIR with Naroda police in Feb 2011, accusing the man of having a sexual relationship with her in 2007, with the allegedly false promise of marriage. Police probed the case, recorded statements of material witnesses, and filed a chargesheet against the man for rape, assault, cheating, and breach of trust. It took 12 years for the case to reach the sessions court. When the trial began, there was nobody to substantiate the chargesheet. On finding only one witness, the court said, “Since the prosecution has examined only one witness and that too a police witness who neither served nor participated in the investigation at the relevant time, his deposition seems more like a balancing act for both sides.”The court said, “Therefore, this court has not taken any further statement of the accused.” In the absence of material witnesses, the court refused to rely on the head constable’s deposition. While acquitting the man by granting him the benefit of the doubt, the judge of the fast-track special court (rape cases), Madhur Mehta, said, “In all, I am of the view that the prosecution has failed to prove his case beyond reasonable doubt. The case of the prosecution has become baseless in the absence of supporting evidence of material witnesses.“
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