“Punishment Meted To Him Is Too Harsh”: Meghalaya HC Sentences Father To 25 Years Instead Of Life For Raping Minor Daughter

A Division Bench of Justice W. Diengdoh and Justice B. Bhattacharjee, in a judgment authored by Justice Diengdoh and pronounced on November 12, 2026, disposed of the criminal appeal "to the extent indicated herein above as far as the quantum of sentence is concerned, the part dealing with the conviction of the appellant not being disturbed." The fine of ₹10,000, with three months' rigorous imprisonment in default, was maintained.

Background

According to the prosecution, on January 26, 2019, the child, then about 13 years old, refused her father's insistence that she accompany him to another village to meet relatives, ran to her grandparents' house and told them that he had been sexually assaulting her for the previous four years, the last occasion being in November 2018. Her mother lodged an FIR at the Women Police Station in Ri-Bhoi district the next day, and the appellant was arrested on January 27, 2019. He was not released on bail at any stage before his conviction.

Charges were framed on July 16, 2019, under Section 6 of the POCSO Act. The judgment records that the appellant pleaded guilty, but the Trial Court did not convict him on that plea under Section 229 CrPC and proceeded to record evidence instead. The prosecution examined eight witnesses and exhibited 13 documents; in his Section 313 CrPC statement, the appellant denied the allegations.

By judgment dated June 18, 2021, the Special Judge convicted him under Section 5(l), (m) and (n) of the POCSO Act and, by order dated June 25, 2021, sentenced him under Section 6 to rigorous imprisonment for life with a fine of ₹10,000.

Appearing as Legal Aid Counsel, Advocate S.D. Upadhaya argued that the charge had been framed under a single head, "aggravated sexual assault punishable under Section 6 of the POCSO Act, 2012", while the conviction was recorded under Section 5(l), (m) and (n), contrary to Section 211 CrPC. He submitted that the survivor had given no specific dates, places or times; that no preliminary examination had been held to test her competency, leaving room for tutoring; that the FSL report on samples collected from both the survivor and the appellant had never been brought on record, inviting an adverse inference under Section 114(g) of the Evidence Act; and that incriminating circumstances had not been put to the appellant under Section 313 CrPC.

On sentence, counsel contended that the offence, having been committed in 2018, attracted the unamended Section 6, which prescribed a minimum of 10 years extending to imprisonment for life, and that the Trial Court had applied the post-2019 formulation of imprisonment for life meaning the remainder of natural life, in breach of Article 20(1) of the Constitution. He also urged that the appellant, 28 years old, illiterate and a first-time offender, deserved a chance at reform. He sought an acquittal, or a de novo trial from the stage of charge, or alternatively a sentence consonant with the unamended provision.

For the State, Government Advocate R. Gurung, with Additional Public Prosecutor S. Sengupta, argued that the survivor's testimony was of "sterling quality", that it was corroborated by her mother and grandparents and by the medical evidence, and that the absence of the FSL report would not materially affect the outcome. Opposing leniency, the State relied on the Supreme Court's observation in Bhanei Prasad @ Raju v. State of Himachal Pradesh that "When a father who is expected to be a shield, a guardian, a moral compass, becomes the source of the most severe violation of a child's bodily integrity and dignity, the betrayal is not only personal but institutional…."

The Bench rejected the challenge to the charge, holding that "even an omission to frame a charge cannot absolve the accused of the liability for commission of such offence, where such irregularity can be cured."

It relied on the Supreme Court's recent decision in Pynchemalangaki Bareh v. State of Meghalaya, 2026, which reiterated that "non-framing of a charge or defects therein would not ipso facto vitiate the trial" and that, under Section 464 CrPC, the test is "whether the accused was aware of the basic ingredients of the offence for which he is being convicted and whether the main facts sought to be established against him were explained to him clearly and whether he got a fair chance to defend himself."

On the plea that the survivor's account was vague, the Court went back to her deposition as PW-2 and found that she had "categorically stated in detail how the appellant had sexually assaulted her, in fact from the first to the seventh occasion", describing the manner of each assault and the place of occurrence, "which is mostly a jungle", and fixing the sixth incident at about 8 pm.

The Bench noted that the defence had neither contradicted her on the number of assaults nor suggested that they had not occurred, "In the cross-examination, the appellant/accused has not been able to contradict or demolish the evidence of the survivor as regard to the number of times she was sexually assaulted by him and there is also no suggestion to say that such sexual assault has not taken place. Therefore, the failure of the appellant to contradict or to challenge the veracity of the statement of the survivor has to be taken as unrebutted."

Turning to the medical evidence, the Court observed that the doctor (PW-5) had found the hymen ruptured, and that "The fact that the hymen rupture was old would only confirm the fact that the sexual assault upon the survivor took place sometime in the past". It concluded: "In the face of such corroboration, this Court would deem it proper to accept the testimony of the survivor as truthful and accurate."

Relying on Ganesan v. State and the line of authority traced through State of Punjab v. Gurmit Singh, the Bench held that "even while relying solely on the testimony of the survivor, amongst other evidence, this Court is convinced that the accused/appellant is guilty of the commission of the crime of sexual assault. His conviction by the Trial Court in this regard has to be upheld."

The judgment does not record a separate finding on the arguments relating to the competency examination, the non-production of the FSL report or the Section 313 CrPC examination.

The survivor's birth certificate, proved by her mother and by a police seizure witness, "has not been controverted by the appellant/accused during trial" and therefore remained "a valid document on record", the Court held. Since she was about 13 when the FIR was lodged and the assaults had begun about four years earlier, "it can safely be said that the child was less than 12 years old when she was first sexually assaulted. The provision of Section 5(m) of the POCSO Act would therefore be attracted in this case."

The Bench added that because the appellant was her biological father and had committed penetrative sexual assault "more than once", Section 5(n) and 5(l) were also attracted.

On sentence, the Court accepted that punishment must be fixed after weighing aggravating and mitigating circumstances, quoting State of Madhya Pradesh v. Bablu, (2014), that "The punishment awarded should be directly proportionate to the nature and the magnitude of the offence." It then held, "One of the cardinal principles of the sentencing policy is 'reformation', in this context taking into account the age of the appellant and his societal background, this Court is of the considered view that the punishment meted to him is too harsh."

The Bench drew support from the Kerala High Court's decision in V.M. Abdulkhader @ Kader v. State of Kerala, where a father convicted of repeatedly raping his minor daughter was found to "not deserve any leniency" but was nonetheless held not to merit "the extreme punishment like imprisonment for life, which shall mean imprisonment for the remainder of his natural life", and was sentenced to 20 years instead.

The judgment does not separately address the Article 20(1) argument on the retrospective application of the 2019 amendment to Section 6.

On its competence to alter the sentence, the Court relied on Shiva Kumar alias Shiva alias Shivamurthy v. State of Karnataka, (2023), in which the Supreme Court held that "the constitutional courts can always exercise the power of imposing a modified or fixed-term sentence by directing that a life sentence … shall be of a fixed period of more than fourteen years", and that such a term "cannot be for a period less than 14 years in view of the mandate of Section 433-A CrPC."

The Bench directed that "instead of having to undergo life imprisonment, he will now be subjected to rigorous imprisonment for the period of 25 years cumulatively." The Court directed that a copy of the judgment be furnished to the appellant free of cost and that the Trial Court records be returned.