Cuttack: Orissa High Court has set aside the conviction of a tractor driver in a rape case, holding the victim as "a consenting party".

The court felt the woman was a consenting party as she had a love affair with the accused and was interested in marrying him. Besides, there was absence of evidence of protest by her during the alleged rape by him.

The incident occurred in Tigiria police limits in Cuttack district, when she had remained missing from her house for four days in September 2013. Her mother had lodged a complaint that when her daughter was traced out, she disclosed that she was gang-raped.

The court of special judge-cum-sessions judge, Cuttack, convicted Litu Behera for committing rape and sentenced him to 10 years rigorous imprisonment on September 19, 2015, but acquitted the four co-accused persons in the case. Litu had filed an appeal petition against the trial court order in the same year.

His plea was that the woman and her mother had approached Litu with the woman's marriage proposal with him through various persons. But since he denied such proposal, they foisted the case.

While allowing Litu's appeal, the single judge bench of Justice S.K. Sahoo ruled: "In the absence of any clinching evidence that the victim was below the age of eighteen years, the surrounding circumstances under which the victim and the appellant when nobody was there in the Mundia, their previous love affair, the interestedness of the victim to marry the appellant as stated by her and absence of any evidence of protest by the victim to the sexual intercourse with her by the appellant, it cannot be said the appellant committed rape on the victim on the night of September 8, 2013, rather the victim can be stated to be a consenting party to the sexual intercourse with the appellant."