Court Notice To Chirag Paswan's Cousin Over His Anticipatory Bail In Rape Case

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice to Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), MP Prince Raj, on a plea moved by complainant challenging anticipatory bail granted to him by the trial court in an alleged rape case.

The bench of Justice Yogesh Khanna on Wednesday sought the response of member of parliament (MP) Prince Raj while posting the matter for February 17, 2022. The Complainant plea has been moved by Advocates Sudesh Kumari Jethwa and Deven Varun.

Prince Raj, president of the Bihar unit of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), was booked in the national capital on September 9, this year for allegedly raping a former party member. Prince Raj was granted anticipatory bail by the trial court on September 25, 2021.

Trial Court Judge while granting bail had said, "There being no requirement of custodial interrogation of accused, absence of an entry in the visitors' registers of Western Court, New Delhi regarding the visit of the prosecutrix on the date of incident and thereafter, in the month of March 2020, the possibility of false implication being prima facie established and there being no chance of tampering with the evidence or accused fleeing from justice, application for grant of anticipatory bail is allowed."

"Having regard to the fact that there is an unreasonable delay in lodging the FIR by prosecutrix (Complainant), the present FIR being lodged by prosecutrix as a counterblast to the FIR lodged by accused against prosecutrix way back in February 2021, the admission made by prosecutrix that whatever happened between her and the accused was consensual in the transcript of audio recording dated August 27, 2020.", the court added in its order.

The court further directed to release the accused on his furnishing a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh with one surety in the like amount. The court also put on conditions LJP MP that he shall join the investigation as and when required by the IO and he shall not threaten, pressurize or contact the prosecutrix in any manner whatsoever i.e through phone, Whatsapp, Email, Instagram, Facebook, Messenger etc.

Delhi Police during the argument had opposed the plea of anticipatory bail petition of Lok Jansakti Party (LJP) MP Prince Raj Paswan. During the hearing in the court, Public Prosecutor submitted that we need custodial interrogation of him to recover the alleged video clips having objectionable content as claimed by the victim.

Senior Advocate Vikas Pahwa along with Advocate Nitesh Rana submitted that this is a case of honey trap and extortion. There is no rape victim here, it's a false case.

Lawyers for Prince Raj further argued that the rape case against his client is a frivolous case, his client is innocent. "The complainant and her friend have been extorting him since 2020 and my client lodged an FIR of extortion in the Parliament Street Police Station on February 10 this year," he stated.

"She threatened to malign his reputation if he did not pay the extortion amount. He gave her Rs 2 lakhs but the extortion still continued. After the filing of FIR by my client, both the complainant and her friend had to take an anticipatory bail from the court," he added.

The woman, who claims that she was an LJP worker, has alleged that she was raped and molested while she was unconscious. An FIR was registered after the instructions of a Delhi court almost three months after the victim filed a complaint with the police in Delhi.

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