Kareena Eugene
The Delhi High Court granted an interim protection from arrest to a 28-year-old Mumbai based journalist, Varun Hiremath, who was accused of rape.
Previously, the Lower Court had refused to grant him the Anticipatory Bill. A single- Judge Bench of Justice Mukta Gupta of the Delhi HC made the interim protection from arrest subject to the journalist’s joining investigation.
An interim protection order is a temporary and urgent legal protection order that can be sought through pending investigations by the police following an information to the commission of the offences involving domestic violence.
Varun Hiremath, an anchor at ET Now, has been on the run since 23rd of February when an FIR was registered against him under IPC Sections 376, 342 and 509 at the Chanakyapuri Police Station.
The complainant in the FIR stated that she was allegedly raped by the journalist.
The FIR mentions that they had met in a café in Khan Market, where the accused asked her to come to his hotel room. Multiple incidents of rape, sexual assault and violence took place in his room.
Before this they had met on ‘Tinder’ and they both had allegedly developed sexual relations with each other.
While the Court dismissed his anticipatory Bill, the Court had observed that ‘consent cannot be implied from the victim’s sexual experiences from the past, with the accused’.
