2012 Park Street rape: Calcutta HC rejects use of deceased victim's recorded statement as evidence

Kolkata: A division bench of the Calcutta High Court, while passing an order on the 2012 Park Street rape case, has set aside the order of a lower court to allow the use of a recorded statement of the deceased victim against the prime accused.

A division bench comprising Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Bivas Pattanayak on Friday, had set aside the earlier lower court order mainly on two grounds.

The first ground is that the public prosecutor in the state had not filed a separate application in the High Court with the plea that the recorded statements of the deceased victim in a lower court against the prime accused, who was absconding then. The second ground is that the counsel of the prime accused then did not get the chance to cross examine the deceased victim while the statement was being recorded at the lower court.

On February 6, 2012, a woman was gang raped in a moving car. The victim named five accused in the case -- Sumit Bajaj, Naser Khan, Ruman Khan, Kader Khan and Ali Khan.

However, Kader Khan, the prime accused, and Ali Khan went absconding.

IPS officer Damayanti Sen, as the-then deputy commissioner-I of the Kolkata Police's detective department (DD), went against the state administration's theory that rape complaint was false and carried on with the investigation and solved the case.

In September 2016, the two absconding accused were arrested, a year after the victim passed away.

The lower court allowed the investigating officers to use the recorded statements of the deceased victim to be used as evidence against Kader Khan.

However, Kader Khan's counsels challenged that permission by the lower court and ultimately on Friday the division bench had disallowed the plea to use the recorded statement.