Delhi HC directs FIR against BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain in alleged Rape case

|HT|

The Delhi high court on Wednesday directed that a first information report (FIR) be filed “forthwith” against BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain in an alleged case of rape in south Delhi’s Chhatarpur in April 2018, and added that the city police was reluctant to register the case.

Directing the police to complete the investigation within three months and file a report in the trial court, Justice Asha Menon said the police have a lot to explain for not having registered the FIR on the receipt of the complaint from the police commissioner in June 2018.

Calls to Hussain’s office and messages to him seeking comment were not answered.

“….there seems to be a complete reluctance on the part of the police to even register an FIR. In the absence of the FIR, at best, the police could have, as correctly observed by the special judge (trial court), conducted only what is a preliminary inquiry. The very fact that it was only a reply that was filed by the police before the metropolitan magistrate, sufficiently establishes that it was not a final report that was submitted by the police,” the court said while dismissing an appeal by the former Union minister.

A Delhi-based woman alleged that Hussain had drugged and raped her at his Chhatarpur farmhouse on April 12, 2018, even though the former minister had denied the allegations saying that she had a dispute with his brother and the woman had unnecessarily dragged him into the case.

According to the prosecution the woman first approached the police on June 16, 2018. However, in July she approached a local court claiming that her complaints to the police have gone unheard. The metropolitan magistrate directed the registration of FIR on the woman’s plea and sought police’s response. On July 4, the police filed a report before the court, and said that the allegations raised by the complainant were not substantiated.

Hussain had challenged the local court’s order and filed a revision petition which was dismissed on July 12, 2018.

On July 13, 2018, Hussain filed an appeal in the high court against the dismissal of his revision plea.

The high court had stayed the trial court’s order for registration of the FIR.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)