KOCHI: The Kerala high court has quashed a false case registered against a rape survivor by men allegedly employed by her rapist to prevent her from attending proceedings in the case. The survivor had argued the case herself in court.Kalamassery police had registered the case against the 30-year-old survivor, a doctor, on a complaint filed by Rajeesh Babu P N (34) last year. The survivor was accused of slapping Rajeesh on his cheek and calling him a ‘bastard’ after parking her car on a public road, allegedly in the presence of police personnel summoned by her. A case was registered against Rajeesh and others also on charges that they obstructed the doctor while she was taking her car out of her house.The survivor argued that the case was false and the alleged incident, like similar incidents earlier, had occurred on days preceding proceedings in the rape case. She said the accused were acting on the instructions of the rape-case accused and one of them had earlier approached her with an offer from the rape-case accused to settle the case.In his judgment, Justice K Abraham Mathew cited discrepancies between the first information statement of Rajeesh and the wound certificate issued by a doctor. Rajeesh’s statement said he was slapped on the right cheek while the doctor noticed tenderness on both sides of the face. The court also said the police personnel and other persons who were allegedly present on the spot were not cited as witnesses.It said calling someone ‘bastard’ cannot be said to be obscene by no stretch of imagination and the offence of uttering obscenity charged against the petitioner is not sustainable.Asked why she chose to argue the case herself, the survivor told TOI that nobody can present facts correlating with documents and evidence better than one who experienced it. “I'm grateful to Justice Abraham Mathew for hearing my arguments and analysing the facts. I understand that the judge had taken the effort to go through the draft prior to the hearing which was a blessing & relief for me, as I realized that I had forgotten to mention two main points in my nervousness… It cost me a lot, but I hope this will be a lesson to those assailants and the corrupt local police.”She also alleged that the social justice department provided no help to her despite promising it earlier. “Such bodies are sadly for namesake and non-functional… I had travelled to Trivandrum and met Nishanthini (IPS) at police headquarters even before this case was 'charge-sheeted' but she was more interested in ‘victim-shaming’. I reported this to the department through registered posts with acknowledgement, but to no avail,” she said.

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