Denying bail to a man accused of raping a 17-year-old girl he knew, a judge in Himachal Pradesh dismissed his claims of consent and said: "No means No - the simplest of sentences has become most difficult for some men to understand".
The man was arrested on December 18, a day after a police complaint was filed by the teen in Rajgarh in Himachal Pradesh, around 90 km from Shimla.
He had allegedly offered the girl a ride home in his jeep on December 17 when she waiting for a bus.
When she sat in the jeep the man allegedly took a detour, took her to a deserted spot and raped her. The girl said "no" to him, Judge Anoop Chitkara noted in his order. He threatened to force himself on her and asked her to marry him, when she again said no. He allegedly raped her and left her on the road. After she took a bus home, she told her mother and the family registered an FIR.
"NO MEANS NO- The simplest of sentences have become the most difficult for some men to understand. No does not mean yes, it does not mean that the girl is shy, it does not mean that the girl is asking a man to convince her, it does not mean that he has to keep pursuing her. The word NO doesn't need any further explanation or justification. It ends there, and the man has to stop," Judge Chitkara said.
The girl said "no" to the accused when he started touching her, but he continued, the judge observed. "It nowhere implies consent, or zeal and desire to explore and feel each other in romantic love."
That she told her mother when she could have easily concealed the incident "points towards the genuineness of the incident", the judge said. "It would be correct to say that it was courageous for the victim girl to talk about the unfortunate incident to her mother and later come forward and report the same with the police."
Neither the absence of any signs of resistance nor the unwilling submission implied consent in any language, the order said. "She explicitly said no to the accused, but he did not stop. When the curriculum does not include the proper sex education, the children raised by such societies fail the women time and again," said Judge Chitkara.
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