Mumbai: Court slaps Rs 5,000 fine on Ankit Tiwari for delaying proceedings

A special women's court yesterday ordered music composer and singer Ankit Tiwari, who has been accused of raping a 28-year-old woman on several occasions from 2012-13, to deposit a fine of Rs 5,000 for delaying the court proceedings.

Singer, music composer Ankit Tiwari. File pic

Tiwari's lawyer Mahesh Vaswani told Justice A S Shende, who was presiding over the case, that they had just got police's reply to the discharge application they had filed and hence, they needed time to study it.

Also, Vaswani told the court that they had recently procured copies of some of Tiwari's documents, which had gone missing, and since they want to go through them before arguing the matter, they would like the court to postpone the hearing. On Vaswani's this demand, the court slapped a fine of Rs 5,000 on his client.

Refuted claims
The singer, through his lawyer, had filed a discharge application on April 28. In this application, he refuted several claims made by the rape survivor.

While she had claimed that she had never consumed liquor prior to Tiwari forcing her to do so, the application said this did not seem possible as she worked in an advertising company.

The survivor had also alleged that Tiwari had recorded the incident and had threatened to publish it online if she didn't maintain physical relations with him.

The application refuted that claim, saying the entire chargesheet has no mention of any video clip.

On December 19, 2015, the court had charged Tiwari under sections 376, 493, 417 and 506 (2) of the IPC.

Brother booked as well
While the court had earlier issued and then stayed a non-bailable warrant against the singer for not appearing before it, Tiwari's brother Ankur has also been booked for threatening the victim.

The case will be heard next on May 19.