New Delhi, Feb. 15: Convicted of rape, “redeemed” by qualifying for IAS.

A man jailed for life for raping a 21-year-old he used to teach and abetting her suicide was last week set free by Delhi High Court, which said he had “redeemed himself” in prison by clearing the tough civil service exams.

Prosecution lawyers have vowed to move the Supreme Court against the verdict that women activists said betrayed a “patriarchal” bias.

Ashok Kumar Rai had been jailed for life by a trial court after the woman he used to teach Chemistry as a private tutor committed suicide in 2003.

In her suicide note, which nailed Rai, Sunita Verma said he used some stupefying drug to induce her into having sexual relations with him.

She said he promised to marry her and continued the relationship but later forced her into sexual relations with another person, prompting her to end her life.

Sent to Tihar jail, Rai moved the high court. Last Monday, a bench of Justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Aruna Suresh acquitted him of the charge of abetting suicide, retained his conviction for rape, but reduced the life term to the period he had already spent in prison.

“We concur with the view taken by the trial judge that Sunita’s consent was obtained under a promise of marriage and that the intention of the appellant from the very beginning was not to marry Sunita. The proposed matrimonial bond was nothing but a bait to obtain her consent to have a physical relationship,” the bench said.

But the judges added that Rai had never “forced” himself on the girl, who was mature enough to know the consequences of her act, and the “promiscuous” relationship was “participative” in nature.

As Rai, who was 29 at the time of committing the offence, had already spent some years in jail, he was set free.

The court said Rai had already “suffered incarceration” for five-and-a-half years and would be “entitled to remissions on account of good conduct in jail”. It also noted that he had “redeemed himself in jail”, which was evident from the fact that “he took his civil services examinations and qualified for” the Indian Administrative Service.

Prosecution lawyers said they intended to appeal. “Clearing a test does not absolve him of his guilt,” said a lawyer who didn’t want to be named.

Advocate Kamini Jaiswal said qualifying for the IAS could not be a criterion for reducing a prison term. Moreover, she added, “you cannot have such a person who has been convicted for rape as an IAS” officer.

UPSC rules bar convicted candidates from being appointed to any post. But the rules also empower the government to make an exception.

The National Commission for Women said it planned to move the apex court.

Indian woman alibi

No Indian woman will allow her husband to rape another girl in her presence, a Delhi court has said while acquitting a couple of rape and abetment charges and terming the girl’s complaint “improbable”.

Salim and his wife Saira Bano, residents of a north-east Delhi locality, were arrested on June 21, 2006, after their neighbour filed a complaint that she was sexually assaulted several times during illegal confinement. Later, she testified that Saira had forced her to have sex with her husband when she visited their house on June 17, 2006.