'Prudent girl' won’t go to hotel room with stranger: HC acquits man accused of raping minor

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has overturned the conviction of Rahul Lahase, a Jalgaon man accused of raping a minor Class 12 student. The court's decision was based on the notion that it is unlikely for a "prudent" girl to accompany a stranger to a hotel room on their first meeting.

Lahase had moved HC against his conviction and 10-year rigorous imprisonment sentence handed down by a sessions court in Amravati in November 2021. The High Court's single bench, led by Justice Govinda Sanap, questioned the credibility of the survivor's testimony and found her version of events implausible.

According to the prosecution, Lahase met the minor girl on Facebook in March 2017, coerced her into a sexual relationship, and later blackmailed her by threatening to share explicit photos. The survivor also claimed that after she ended the relationship, Lahase shared the intimate photos with her family and fiancé.


However, Justice Sanap remarked that the survivor's behaviour was not consistent with that of a person of ordinary prudence. "A girl meeting a young boy for the first time would not go to a hotel room. Such conduct on the boy's part would obviously send alarm signals...yet, she chose to accompany him to a hotel room," he said.


Inputs from TOI