The Tanahu District Court has acquitted actor Paul Shah of rape charge.
A single bench of Judge Komal Prasad Acharya has acquitted Shah of the rape charge stating that the accusation cannot be proved, according to the court’s website.
He was also acquitted of rape charge but sentenced for two and a half years for child sexual abuse by the Nawalpur District Court on September 6, 2022.
A single bench of Judge Yagya Prasad Acharya of had acquitted Shah of rape but sentenced him for two and a half years and asked him to pay reparation of Rs 1 million to the victim.
A rape complaint was filed against Shah by the then 17-year-old singer with the District Police Office, Tanahu on February 23, 2022. He surrendered before the Tanahu Police four days later. The family had also lodged another complaint with the Nawalpur Police on February 27. The minor's family had lodged the rape complaints alleging that Shah raped her in Pokhara, Tanahu and Nawalpur.
Shah was accused by the singer, who is a minor and cannot legally give consent for sex, of having sex with her promising to marry her in the future.
The singer had reached the Kaski Police complaining that Shah sexually abused her a month before that. Shah seems to have tried to reach a settlement after the Kaski Police refused to register the complaint citing lack of jurisdiction and advised the girl to go to the Tanahu Police instead as the alleged incident happened in Tanahu.
The Tanahu District Court then sent Shah to judicial custody on March 24 after he conceded that he had reached her room in the midnight after getting drunk despite denying that he raped her.
The minor then had turned hostile and claimed in her statement to the Tanahu District that Shah did not rape her.
