Victim turned hostile to help actor Shiney Ahuja: Judge

Mumbai:  The sessions court, which recently sentenced actor Shiney Ahuja to seven years' imprisonment in a rape case, has held that the victim had "purposefully" turned hostile to help the accused and said action may be taken against her for giving false evidence.

"Stern action can be taken against the maid and a show-cause notice issued to her as to why no action should be taken for having filed a false report," the judge observed while delivering the verdict on March 30.

In the 86-page judgement, a copy of which became available on Thursday, the court has mainly relied on the statement of the 20-year-old victim given before the magistrate although she had retracted it later in the court during the trial.

The court has also taken into account the results of the forensic tests, including DNA examination, while convicting Shiney.

Sessions judge P M Chouhan pointed out seven circumstantial evidences to nail the actor in the crime that include semen stains on bed sheet and a nail injury on the actor's arm indicating that force was used on the victim.

Ruling out consensual sex, the judge did not accept Shiney's defence that the maid was in love with him and had made several phone calls to him the night before the incident.

Judge Chouhan disagreed with Shiney that the results of the Kalina laboratory which had conducted DNA tests cannot be relied upon as it was not accredited by National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL).

The judge held, "Though the DNA tests suffer from an infirmity, non-production of all documents by the laboratory was not sufficient to create the doubt about the results which showed that the male haplyocytes in the vaginal smear slide was a perfect match with that in Ahuja's blood sample".

In September last year, the maid had backtracked from her allegation that Shiney had raped her and told the court that she had filed the complaint at the behest of a woman who had secured her the job at his residence.

In June 2009, the girl had lodged a police complaint alleging she was raped by the actor at his residence. Shiney was arrested on June 14 and released on bail three months later.

The police, in a 109-page chargesheet, had charged Shiney with rape, criminal intimidation and wrongful confinement of the victim. He was convicted of rape but acquitted of other charges.

Shiney is currently serving the sentence while his lawyers and family have planned to file an appeal in the Bombay High Court against the conviction.