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Synopsis

The Allahabad High Court recently upheld the conviction of a man in a rape case. The man had been sentenced to life imprisonment in 2022 by the Special POCSO court for raping an eight-year-old girl. 

In convict's appeal against conviction and sentence, the high court noted that he was well known to the victim who had clearly implicated him in her statements before the Magistrate as well as before the trial court.

"The medical evidence also corroborates the testimony of the victim. The doctor has opined that redness and partially torn hymen were due to penetration of some hard and blunt object, but the 9 penetration was incomplete, hence hymen was partially torn," court highlighted. 

Court referred to the judgment of the top court in State of Tamil Nadu versus Ravi alias Nehru, 2006, where it had been held that even a slight penetration of penis into vagina without rupturing hymen would constitute rape.

Therefore, the high court held the convict guilty of the offences under Sections 376 of IPC and 5/6 of The Protection of Children From Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act), however, it modified the sentence. 

The convict had been sentenced by the Special Court to undergo life imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 50,000. However, the high court bench of Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Syed Aftab Husain Rizvi modified it to rigorous imprisonment for ten years with a fine of Rs 50,000.

While reducing the sentence, the bench took into consideration the submission of the convict's counsel that the incident was of the year 2016 and he was languishing in jail for about last seven years. The counsel had urged the bench to adopt a lenient view stating that the convict was a married person and due to his incarceration, his family was suffering as he was the only breadwinner of his family. 

The FIR in the case was registered by the brother of the victim in 2016 after four days of the incident. He had alleged that his eight-year-old sister was sexually assaulted by one Suresh (the convict).

As per the FIR, though the victim used to live with her brother at his place, but since last several days before the incident, she had been living with her father at his house where Suresh sexually assaulted her. 

In the appeal against conviction, the counsel for the convict contended that the victim was the only witness on whom the prosecution case was based and the medical evidence did not corroborate the oral testimony of the victim.

He referred to the pathology report of vaginal smear and cervical smear of the victim which was negative and no spermatozoa had been found. He also submitted that in the medical reports, victim's hymen had also been found intact. Therefore, he contended that it indicated that actually no sexual assault had been committed.

Case Title: Suresh Kumar v. State of UP and Another