The Delhi High Court on Friday agreed to conduct in-camera proceedings in the anticipatory bail plea of a Mumbai-based television journalist in an alleged rape case.
Justice Mukta Gupta gave the direction after senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing journalist Varun Hiremath, requested for in-camera hearing.
The High Court, on April 9, granted interim protection from arrest to Mr. Hiremath in the case till April 16, provided he joined the police investigation. Mr. Hiremath has approached the court after his earlier anticipatory bail plea was dismissed by a trial court here on March 12.
The trial court had said that consent cannot be implied from the complainant’s previous experiences with the accused. If the woman stated in her evidence before the court that she did not consent, the court shall presume that she did not, the trial court had said while rejecting his anticipatory bail plea.
The woman, in her FIR filed at Chanakyapuri Police Station, had alleged that she was raped by Mr. Hiremath at a five-star hotel here on February 20.
Mr. Hiremath’s counsel, however, claimed that there had been a history of previous sexual relationship between the accused and the complainant.
