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Synopsis

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has modified its order reducing the life sentence of a rape convict to 20 years of imprisonment stating that the convict was "kind enough" to leave the 4 years old victim alive. The High Court took suo motu cognizance of the issue and noted that certain inadvertent mistake has crept into the judgment delivered on October 18, 2022, wherein the word “Kind” has been used to refer to the convict who stands convicted of rape.

A bench of Justice Subodh Abhyankar and Satyendra Kumar Singh while observing the above replaced the statement "he was kind enough to leave the prosecutrix alive" with "he did not cause any other physical injury to the victim".

The High Court noted, "It is apparent that the aforesaid mistake is obviously inadvertent in the context, as this court has already held the act of the appellant as demonic." Given the above, the bench modified the paragraph concerned.

The order has been passed in a plea filed by a rape convict challenging the judgment of the trial court finding him guilty of rape of a 4-year-old minor girl and awarding life imprisonment.

Background:

The convict used to live in a tent near the victim's hut, and the convict called the victim into his tent on the pretext of giving her a rupee. Thereafter, the grandmother of the victim heard the cries of the victim, she raised an alarm to save the prosecutrix, to which, the father of the victim came out and heard his daughter’s cries from the tent of the convict. 

When he went into the tent of the convict, he saw that his daughter was lying on the ground and was bleeding from her vagina whereas the convict Ramu who was naked, was wearing his underwear and ran away from the spot soon after he saw her father entering into his tent.

Dr. Ranjana Patidar who examined the victim at the hospital also saw that the prosecutrix was bleeding from her vagina and her hymen had a third-degree perineal tear and was also bleeding.

Counsel appearing for the convict had submitted that there is no cogent evidence available on record to connect the convict with the offense as even the FSL report is not brought on record in support of the case of the prosecution.

Whereas, the counsel for the State submitted that no illegality has been committed by the Judge of the Trial Court in appreciating the evidence and convicting as aforesaid and the convict does not deserve any leniency in sentencing. 

After going through the record, the bench noted that it does not find any error in appreciation of evidence by the trial Court and considering the demonic act of the appellant who appears to have no respect for the dignity of a woman and has the propensity to commit sexual offense even with a girl child aged 4 years, this Court does not find it to be a fit case where the sentence can be reduced to the sentence already undergone by him.

However, the bench while reducing the sentence of the convict said, "considering the fact that he was kind enough to leave the prosecutrix alive, this court is of the opinion that the life imprisonment can be reduced to 20 years' rigorous imprisonment."

Case Title: RAMU @ RAMSINGH Vs. STATE OF M.P.