A Beed gang rape survivor's decade-long fight for justice faced a setback as the High Court overturned her attackers’ conviction, even as she continues to battle social ostracism. 

Beed, Maharashtra: “I was walking through my village when I suddenly saw one of the convicts from my case, roaming free,” said Meena (name changed), a gang rape survivor from Maharashtra’s Beed district. “There had been rumours that all four had been released. But I didn’t believe it until I saw it myself.”

The shock wasn’t just in seeing them. “No one informed us about the High Court [Bombay HC, Aurangabad bench] proceedings in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, which overturned the lower court’s conviction, setting all four men free.”

“When I asked if we needed to attend the hearings, the public prosecutor had told us there was no need. They said they would handle it, but this is what the result is,” she recalled. 

Meena’s case began on January 1, 2015. That afternoon, she was travelling back to her home in Beed from her maternal village. She boarded a shared jeep headed toward Padalsinghi Square, planning to change vehicles. But midway, the jeep took a sudden turn. “I was the only passenger,” she said. “The driver picked up a few men. They took me to a field and raped me.” 

According to Meena’s statement in the first information report, the assault continued for several hours, including at her home, until early morning.

By the time daylight came on January 2, her clothes were torn, her phone had been taken, and she had no way to contact anyone. She travelled 25 kilometres in an autorickshaw to reach the Gevrai taluka police station. She waited there for hours until the police eventually contacted her husband. “He was shocked. We both broke down,” she said, adding that police kept her waiting at the station until a case was filed. 

The FIR was registered later that evening, and within 24 hours, all four accused—residents of nearby Lamani tribal hamlets—were arrested. The day after filing her complaint, the police called her to an identity parade at Beed Prison, where she identified the accused. 

Perseverance

Almost immediately, Meena began facing immense pressure from local leaders and community members to take back the case, who suggested a compromise. “They wanted me to settle, to let it go,” she said. 

However, with the help of her husband and local women’s rights activist Manisha Tokale, she pursued the case through public prosecutor Advocate Milind Waghirkar.

As the trial neared its end in 2020, the accused’s families again offered an out-of-court settlement, but Meena refused. Eventually, the Beed Sessions Court convicted all four men and sentenced them to life imprisonment. 

But her decision to see the case through the court drew backlash from her village and the surrounding hamlets. Consequently, the gram panchayats of three neighbouring villages passed a resolution on August 15, 2020—Independence Day—calling for her social boycott. This was even before the Sessions Court passed its judgment in October 2020. 

After the verdict, the villagers’ attempts to ostracise her only intensified. 

An atrocity case was registered against Meena in November 2020. 

On December 26, 2020, villagers served Meena a notice to vacate her ancestral land, and she received a formal notice threatening legal action for alleged illegal land occupation under the Bombay Prevention of Fragmentation and Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1958. 

That same day, a dispute over her water connection led to a confrontation with a panchayat worker. 

Later that week, a group of around 400 villagers gathered outside the Beed District Superintendent of Police’s office and submitted a petition that labelled Meena a “threat” to the village. The application, signed by villagers from three hamlets, accused her of having an “ill character” and a habit of falsely accusing men of molestation and rape. 

It requested the SP to verify these claims and protect villagers from Meena’s alleged “terror”. 

Meena, too, went to the SP’s office to explain her side. “I tried to explain what was happening. Some journalists at the police station asked about my story,” she said. 

A journalist, according to Meena, got a copy of the “social boycott” resolution. This resolution was reportedly passed in August 2020, even though pandemic rules made such meetings illegal. After media reports highlighted the meeting’s illegality, the official resolution and its related documents purportedly vanished from the Gram Panchayat offices.

This incident caught the attention of local activists, especially Tokale, a social worker who heads Jagar Pratishtan and Mahila Ustod Sanghatana in Beed. She contacted Meena to offer legal and emotional support.

It is important to note that Meena did not find out about the August 15, 2020, resolution until late December, when villagers were intensifying their attacks on her. That's when Tokale and her legal team stepped in. They checked Meena’s property documents, drafted her response to the encroachment notice, and created a plan to protect her rights.

Tokale also brought the issue to Neelam Gorhe, then Deputy Speaker of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. Gorhe released a press note urging the Rural Development Minister to ensure Meena's safety. 

Gorhe had also called for the Rural Development Department to appoint an administrator over the three villages and investigate the resolution’s passage in violation of constitutional rights. 

Public pressure also led to Vyankatrao M Hundekar, Beed’s Women and Child Development Officer, visiting Meena's village and offering official support. 

The activist team also met with police, explaining that the atrocity case against Meena was retaliation, which led to no further action against her.

Talking about the boycott and the events that followed, Advocate Siddharth Shinde of the Victim Support System (VSS) said that the resolutions against Meena were passed by three village panchayats and were signed by women sarpanches and panchayat members. “They accused Meena of having ‘poor character’ as if that alone could justify expelling her from her village,” he added.

Shinde said, “Who gave them the authority to target her this way? It shows how deeply entrenched patriarchal attitudes are, even when enforced through women representatives.”

Reversal

Ten years on, Meena’s fight looks like it is far from over. “The convicts had appealed the sentence in the High Court at Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar,” Tokale said. “And recently, we found out that she had lost the case.”

The High Court’s decision, delivered in June 2025, came as a crushing blow, overturning the life sentences Meena had fought over five years to secure from the Sessions Court in Beed. 

The lawyers for the accused had argued that the case largely rested on the victim’s testimony, claiming her story was untruthful and unreliable. They pointed to inconsistencies, like the incident’s date falling on a weekly market day, and “improbabilities” in her account. They also contended that the identification parade was unreliable. They also argued that the victim’s husband’s testimony was unbelievable, independent witnesses (the panchas) did not support the prosecution, forensic reports did not corroborate the victim’s story, and the investigating officer’s testimony alone was insufficient to prove the charges. Based on these arguments and supporting judgments, the defence requested that the conviction and sentence be overturned.

Public Prosecutor Advocate Milind Vaghirkar, however, countered this, stating, “We had presented the survivor’s statement, medical records, and all supporting documents. Her testimony remained consistent under cross-examination. There was no indication of falsehood or motive.”  A rare win for Beed, which has been pulled up for low conviction rates and declining law and order. As per the police department data compiled by the Criminal Investigation Department, in 2022, Beed registered a conviction rate of just 11.79%, a steep decline from 36.09% in 2018.

Vaghirkar called the Sessions Court’s ruling one of the strongest he had seen in Beed, adding, “I don’t know how it fell apart in the High Court.” 

Advocate Sudarshan Salonkhe, representing the accused, said: “We argued that the victim’s testimony lacked credibility and that neither medical nor circumstantial evidence supported her version. If she is dissatisfied, she has the right to appeal to the Supreme Court.” 

This appeal is now Meena’s next possible step. Advocate Shinde explained she could apply to the Department of Law and Justice in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, citing safety concerns and the strength of ignored evidence, for a formal appeal to the Supreme Court. Shinde said: “It’s too early to say how far we’ll go, but she now understands her options.” 

This story was originally published as a part of Crime and Punishment project in collaboration with Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

Cover Photo - Representative image/ AI-generated using Canva