A Bombay magistrate court on December 12 acquitted filmmaker Subhash Kapoor of molestation charges due to the complainant’s conduct which, according to the court, was inconsistent with the ordinary course of human nature. An actress had accused Kapoor of molesting her in her flat in 2012.
The court said, it was difficult to believe why the woman retaliated in the form of only a “no” and why instead she did not raise an alarm at the time of the alleged incident even though there was a security guard in the building in which she lived. “It appears from cross-examination that the informant did not scream when accused pulled her towards the bedroom and she has not sustained any injury when accused forcefully pulled her,” metropolitan magistrate A.I. Shaikh said, adding, “Her dress was not damaged when accused forcefully put his hand in her dress. It is important to note that conduct of the informant is inconsistent with the ordinary course of human nature.”
The magistrate concluded that it was probably a case of professional jealousy because while her films had not fared well, Subhash Kapoor had won awards. What’s more, the court observed, the informant had posted negative tweets on the success of the accused. Also, he had not given her a role in his films, the magistrate noted. The court questioned the woman’s two-year delay in complaining to cops despite being educated and shooting for films, and being active on social media in the interim. It added that her silence created doubt about the truthfulness of her complaint. The alleged incident had taken place on May 25, 2012 but the FIR was registered in 2014.
The 47-page detailed judgement copy was made available recently. Script writer Danish Haidar, accused of posting a defamatory article against the woman in lieu of the allegations, was also acquitted.
The woman had alleged that after a night out with others including her sister and Haidar, only Subhash Kapoor and she were eventually left in the flat overnight. She alleged that she had asked Kapoor to leave in the morning, but he subsequently molested her. The magistrate labelled her allegations concocted and an afterthought. He also said, there were lacunae in police investigations and they had also failed to depose independent witnesses. He pointed to discrepancies in the date of the incident and said, there was grave contradiction. “… no prudent lady will forget the date of incident,” he added.