Arunabh Kumar (born 26 November 1982) is an Indian entrepreneur, producer and the founder of The Viral Fever. He was the CEO of The Viral Fever. He rejoined TVF after a hiatus of 3 years as a Mentor after his allegations were found false by a former employee and several other women.
An allegation of Sexual harassment was put over on Arunabh kumar by the prosecution which was happened in 2014, as per the prosecution.
Without the proper and concrete proofs, by the prosecution, the court found it as unreasonable accusations and therefore, found guilty.
“The prosecution failed to prove guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt,” the court said.
The Metropolitan Magistrate Court at Andheri acquitted him over “lack of concrete evidence” on 12 September 2022. The order, which was made available recently, said: “The prosecution failed to prove guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt.”
“She also admitted that after the incident she do nothing, she did not shout, she did not slap, when the accused had done alleged incident. Even she has not directly went to the police station. She also admitted that she had silent about the incident for three years. She has not given any print of the screen shot of Facebook which were uploaded by the different girls. The suggestions put to her she had filed false case only to extort the accused,” the court added
The court found that the accusations were out of rage and grudge and said, “There are material discrepancy and contradiction… it can (even) be said that the said complaint is filed out of grudge or rivalry on reason business between accused and informant.”
Earlier to this case, #MeToo movement in India, an article was published on Medium by a former employee at TVF, accusing Arunabh Kumar of sexual harassment, in 2017. Following this, multiple women came forward with similar allegations. TVF and Kumar had rubbished the allegations, calling them “untrue.”
The woman had posted anonymously on medium.com under the title ‘The Indian Uber- That is TVF’, and said that Arunabh Kumar had allegedly molested her during her tenure at the company.
Based on the complaint of the former employee, the Andheri police had registered a case in 2017 against Arunabh Kumar under Indian Penal Code Sections 354 A (causing sexual harassment) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman).
And after that she lodged the complaint only after another woman accused Kumar of sexual harassment three years later.
As there was paucity in the proofs, presented by the prosecution therefore, the court held it to be, “unreasonable and unexplained delay in filing FIR, which raised the clouds on the case of prosecution.”
BY: AYUSHI BHUSHAN, 1ST YEAR, BA.LLB(INTEGRATED), BANASTHALI UNIVERSITY, RAJASTHAN
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