SC to hear woman SP's rape case against IPS officer

The Supreme Court on Monday posted after two weeks the hearing on the plea filed by a Bihar police woman officer against a Patna high court order that quashed the FIR against an IPS officer whom she accused of rape on the false promise of marriage.

A bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and Ahsanuddin Amanullah adjourned the matter observing the petition required certain corrections.

The court asked advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey, appearing for the woman, to carry out the amendments.

The woman is currently posted as a superintendent of police with Patna CID.

The plea argued the high court order passed on September 19, 2024, was "perverse, devoid of any legal merits, beyond the facts of the case" besides being "contrary to the settled law".

The FIR was lodged against IPS officer Pushkar Anand and his parents at Mahila police station in Bihar's Kaimur on December 29, 2014 on a complaint by the woman officer.

While Anand was booked for rape and criminal intimidation, among others, his parents were booked for abetting the crime.

The complainant alleged two days after she joined as the deputy SP in Bhabua, Anand, who was the SP, started showing friendly gestures towards her through social media.

He allegedly showed inclination to marry her, she reciprocated and the two developed physical relations, she alleged.

However, the marriage did not materialise for their horoscopes didn't match, the woman said.

"The high court failed to appreciate that the respondent number 2 (IPS officer) at the time of commission of offence was posted as a superintendent of police and the petitioner was posted as subordinate officer to him and thus, the respondent number 2 was in power and authority to influence to his subordinate officer, i.e., petitioner and being an authority, he committed the offence and also assured to get married to her which he later denied by citing vague reasons," the plea said.

The high court, it said, also failed to appreciate that a bare perusal of the FIR and the chargesheet established the offence was committed and the FIR prima facie discloses the commission of the offence.

The high court said in its order the woman was in a relationship with the IPS officer for quite some time and willingly stayed and established physical relations with him.

"If the relationship is not working out for reasons beyond the control of the parties, it cannot be a ground for lodging a case against the petitioner for offence punishable under Section 376 of the IPC. Hence, initiation of criminal proceeding by the informant against the petitioner is wholly unwarranted," it said.