New Delhi, Jan 20 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the trial court proceedings against a former Army officer who sought quashing of a chargesheet against him in an alleged rape case.

A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Krishnan Vinod Chandran asked Delhi Police to inform whether similar FIRs were filed by the complainant against others and granted it time till February 19 to file a reply.

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Advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey, appearing for the petitioner, submitted charges in the matter were likely to be framed soon and if trial court proceedings were not stayed, the case would be infructuous.

He argued the FIR was filed by the complainant with a malicious intention to extract money from the petitioner and it was a case of "sextortion".

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The top court had issued notices to Delhi Police and the complainant while agreeing to examine the man's plea.

The plea submitted a wrongful and malicious prosecution was initiated as seven FIRs against nine different people, including the petitioner, at seven different police stations, were registered at the woman's instance in the last eight years.

The petitioner, Capt Rakesh Walia (retired), challenged a Delhi High Court order dismissing his plea for quashing the chargesheet.

The high court in its July 31 order observed the matter was before the trial court, which would consider the arguments on behalf of the petitioner, and pass an appropriate verdict.

"Petitioner is a 63-year-old decorated officer of the Indian Army with critical medical ailments, who has also suffered a massive heart attack and has two stents implanted. He was diagnosed with cancer and clinically declared as a highly immune-compromised case," his plea submitted.

The former Army officer, it said, was a "victim of an unscrupulous abuser" of law whose modus operandi was to extort the "hard-earned money of respectable citizens like him" by misusing the rape and molestation laws.

It came on record that during the COVID-19 lockdown somewhere between 2019 and 2020, the complainant got in touch with the petitioner claiming to be a social media influencer. The call was regarding the promotion of his book titled "Broken Crayons Can Still Colour" on various social media platforms for a wider audience reach.

According to the plea, the petitioner was interested in the complainant's offer and decided to avail her service in June 2021, soon after the lockdown ended.

On December 29, 2021, the petitioner agreed to meet the complainant in person to discuss the modalities for the promotion of his autobiography and they met at the Chhattarpur Metro Station following which they drove towards Noida, the plea stated.

The petitioner, however, claimed after he had dropped her off in Noida, he received a call from the local police at around 6 pm, informing him about the woman's complaint that he had sexually assaulted her at around 4.15 pm after drugging her.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)