New Delhi: Former BSP MP Dhananjay Singh was on Friday acquitted by a Delhi court of the charges of raping and criminally intimidating a woman after the alleged victim turned hostile.
Additional Sessions Judge Sarita Birbal freed Singh, a former MP from Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh, noting that the 42-year-old woman had deposed in the court that she was not sexually assaulted by the politician.
The court closed the evidence in the case and had kept it for pronouncement of final judgement as the woman, a railway employee, had given her testimony contrary to her statements before the police and a magistrate in which she had said she was repeatedly raped by Singh for nearly four years.
Singh, who was out on bail, was represented through advocate S P M Tripathi in the case.
According to the sources, the woman, in April 2014, had deposed in the court that no harm was done to her by Singh and he did not rape her. In the charge sheet against Singh in the case, the police had alleged that he had repeatedly raped the woman between July 2005 and March 2009.
Referring to the complaint filed by the woman, the police had alleged that the victim was raped several times by Singh at gunpoint and was threatened with dire consequences if she reported the matter.
The woman had said during her deposition that she had lodged the complaint against Singh as he used to interfere in her matrimonial life and her husband had sent her divorce papers in 2009 due to which she was disturbed, sources had said.
She had also said she did not want to depose anything against Singh and had made her statement before the magistrate under pressure from her relatives.
Singh was facing trial under various provisions of IPC relating to rape, voluntarily causing hurt and criminal intimidation.