A Bollywood director who was jailed for raping an American research scholar in 2015 has had his conviction overturned by an Indian judge ruling that the victim had not protested strongly enough.
Mahmood Farooqui, 39, was found guilty of the attack in March 2015 by a fast-track court hearing the case in New Delhi.
This week, a judge in Delhi ruled that despite verbal and physical protests, it may not have been clear to the Farooqui that the victim did not consent as “a feeble no may mean yes”, especially among “academically proficient” people.
The victim had travelled to India to seek Farooqui's assistance with her research when the attack took place at his home in an upscale area of the capital. But now the Delhi High Court has questioned the victim's account and whether Farooqui understood the lack of consent, according to the Indian Express.
“Instances of woman behaviour are not unknown that a feeble no may mean a yes,” Justice Ashutosh Kumar said.
He said that a “feeble no” would be enough if the parties were strangers or if one of them was “a conservative person.”
However, he argued, “But [the] same would not be the situation when parties are known to each other, are persons of letters and are intellectually/academically proficient, and if in the past there have been physical contacts,” the judge said.
“In such cases, it would be really difficult to decipher whether little or no resistance and a feeble no was actually a denial of consent.”
Farooqui has now been acquitted of the crime. The director, who had served just over two years of his seven year sentence, had long denied the allegations against him.
During the appeal trial, his lawyer challenged the victim's rape claim and suggested that the two were in fact in a relationship.
“In a relationship when people are attracted to each other, things do happen. But it does not mean it's rape,” the lawyer said.
The woman returned to the US shortly after the incident but came back to report the matter to police.
India introduced tough laws against sex offenders in the wake of the fatal gang-rape of a Delhi student in the capital in December 2012 that sparked mass street protests.
Farooqui is best known for his film Peepli Live, which explores the divide between urban and rural India. It was produced by Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan.