PUNE: The Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) in Pune on Saturday recorded the statement of the 22-year-old data scientist related to her complaint that she was allegedly raped by an unidentified delivery agent in her rented Kondhwa flat on Wednesday evening. Police said they produced the complainant before the court as she kept changing her statements during questioning. Deputy commissioner of police (Zone V) Rajkumar Shinde told TOI: "We produced the woman before the CJM, Ms T M Ahmed, and the process of recording her statement under provisions of Section 183 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) was completed." The section empowers a magisterial court to record the confession of an accused or the statement of a witness.Shinde said the FIR the woman, who has a BE degree and works with an IT firm in Kalyaninagar, had filed with the Kondhwa police on Thursday and her subsequent statements had numerous discrepancies. "She continuously changed her statements during questioning," he said. On Thursday, the Kondhwa police had registered a case of rape, voyeurism and criminal intimidation based on the woman's complaint stating that a "delivery agent" stepped into her house on the pretext of delivering a parcel and getting a delivery sheet acknowledged, sprayed some chemical on her face to render her unconscious and later sexually assaulted her City police commissioner Amitesh Kumar on Friday said investigation into the alleged rape revealed that there was "no forced entry into the woman's flat, no chemical was sprayed to render her unconscious and the selfie on her cellphone was taken with her consent before she cropped the image". Police had detained her friend (24), an IT professional with a firm in Baner, after evidence like his cellphone location showed that he was around the flat at the time of the alleged incident. The DCP on Saturday said the police released the woman's friend for now, but served a notice on him with a direction to join the investigation. Shinde said the process to record the complainant's statement by a magisterial court was crucial under the provisions relating to rape or sexual assault of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) "to ensure voluntariness and reliability of such statements" during investigation. "It ensures transparency. Since her statement is recorded, the investigating officer can continue the investigation based on her voluntary disclosure before the CJM," he said.A senior police officer privy to the investigation said: "We questioned the complainant on material points. She gave multiple oral and written statements, but they were found contradictory and misleading during verification. Her statements are not consistent with the FIR. A call to take action against her would be taken based on the outcome of the investigation. She would be referred to a counselling session."Sources in the sessions court said the investigating officer took the CJM's permission for securing the woman's presence to record her statement because of the complexity of the case. The court considered the officer's request and recorded her statement in camera. The woman's statement was sealed in an envelope soon after it was recorded. The sealed envelope has been kept in the safe custody of the court ‘nazir' (assistant superintendent).The investigating officer will now have to secure a certified copy of her statement by seeking the court's permission. The purpose of recording her statement before the court under Section 183 of BNSS is to create a reliable record of a witness. This process aims at detering witnesses from subsequently changing their testimonies, minimise perjury and provide more trustworthy accounts of events, especially when compared to statements taken during the investigation, sources said.The CJM court's assistant public prosecutor, Priyanka Vengurlekar, confirmed that the woman's statement was recorded, but said its contents could not be made public.(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme court directives on cases related to sexual assault)

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