Nafr High Court
Case Details
1 / 14 CRA No. 1135 of 2022 SOURABH BHILWAR Digitally signed by SOURABH BHILWAR Date: 2025.08.29 10:43:39 +0530 2025:CGHC:43510-DB NAFR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR CRA No. 1135 of 2022 Jeetu @ Bhakku Yadav S/o Bisauha Aged About 20 Years R/o Ward No. 8 Dakbanglapara Gariyaband, Police Station And District Gariyaband, Chhattisgarh. versus ... Appellant State Of Chhattisgarh Through Police Station & District Griyaband, Chhattigarh. ... Respondent (Cause title is taken from Case Information System) For Appellant For Respondent/State : Mr. Hanuman Prasad Agrawal, Advocate : Mr. Hariom Rai, Panel Lawyer Hon’ble Shri Ramesh Sinha, Chief Justice Hon’ble Shri Bibhu Datta Guru, Judge Order on Board Per, Bibhu Datta Guru, J 28/08/2025 1. This appeal is directed against the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 23.03.2022 passed by the Court of learned Additional Sessions Judge, Fast Track Special Court (POCSO and rape cases), 2 / 14 CRA No. 1135 of 2022 Gariyaband, Chhattisgarh in POCSO Criminal Case No.16/2021 whereby the appellant has been convicted and sentenced as under:- Conviction Sentence U/s 363 of IPC R.I. for 03 years and fine of Rs.300/-, with default stipulation. U/s 366 of IPC R.I. for 05 years and fine of Rs.500/-, with default stipulation. U/s 376 (2)(n)(3) of IPC R.I. for 20 years and fine of Rs.2,000/-, with default stipulation. U/s 3(2)(v) of SC/ST Act Life Imprisonment and fine of Rs.2,000/-, with default stipulation. U/s 6 of the POCSO Act R.I. for 20 years and fine of Rs.2,000/-, with default stipulation. All the sentences were directed to run concurrently. 2. Case of the prosecution, in brief, is that on 27/04/2018, the mother of the victim appeared at the Gariaband Police Station and lodged an oral report regarding missing of her daughter/ victim to the effect that her younger daughter/ victim aged 13 years old had gone to Dak Bangla Para on 25/04/2018 saying that she was going to see a wedding procession and when she did not return till late night, her whereabouts were searched in the vicinity but she could not be traced. Based on the information given by the complainant, a missing report was filed and a
Facts
First Information Report was registered against the suspected accused Jeetu alias Bhakku Yadav on 27/04/2018 and the case was taken up for investigation. 3 / 14 CRA No. 1135 of 2022 3. During the investigation, Spot Map (Ex.P/13) was got prepared. Victim got medically examined. Accused was apprehended and statements of the witnesses including the victim was recorded by the police as well as before the Judicial Magistrate under Section 164 CrPC. Upon completion thereof, charge-sheet was submitted accordingly. After framing the charges against the accused/appellant, the charges were read out and explained to the appellant, he denied committing the crime and demanded trial. 4. In order to bring home the offence, the prosecution has examined 09 witnesses in its support. Statement of the accused/appellant under Section 313 Cr.P.C was recorded, wherein he has pleaded his innocence and false implication in the matter. 5. The trial Court after appreciating oral and documentary evidence available on record, by its judgment dated 23/03/2022 convicted and sentenced the appellant as mentioned in paragraph one of this judgment. Hence, this appeal. 6. Learned counsel appearing for the appellant would submit that the statement of the victim is filled with contradictions and omissions, thus not worthy of being given credence. He further submits that conviction cannot be based on guesswork. He submits that victim is a child witness, thus, not to be believed in the absence of corroboration and prosecution story is filled with doubts, benefit whereof should be extended to the accused. Learned counsel further submits that the appellant has been falsely implicated in the present case. He would submit that the 4 / 14 CRA No. 1135 of 2022 conviction against the appellant is bad in law and it is not supported by the evidence of the prosecution beyond reasonable doubt. He would submit that the medical report is not supported the version of the prosecution and without there being any evidence with regard to the age of the Victim, the conviction of the appellant is bad in the eyes of law.
Legal Reasoning
“22. In our considered opinion, the ‘sterling witness’ should be of a very high quality and caliber whose version should, therefore, be unassailable. The Court considering the version of such witness should be in a position to accept it for its face 9 / 14 CRA No. 1135 of 2022 value without any hesitation. To test the quality of such a witness, the status of the witness would be immaterial and what would be relevant is the truthfulness of the statement made by such a witness. What would be more relevant would be the consistency of the statement right from the starting point till the end, namely, at the time when the witness makes the initial statement and ultimately before the Court. It should be natural and consistent with the case of the prosecution qua the accused. There should not be any prevarication in the version of such a witness. The witness should be in a position to withstand the cross-examination of any length and howsoever strenuous it may be and under no circumstance should give room for any doubt as to the factum of the occurrence, the persons involved, as well as, the sequence of it. Such a version should have co-relation with each and everyone of other supporting material such as the recoveries made, the weapons used, the manner of offence committed, the scientific evidence and the expert opinion. The said version should consistently match with the version of every other witness. It can even be stated that it should be akin to the test applied in the case of circumstantial evidence where there should not be any missing link in the chain of circumstances to hold the accused guilty of the offence alleged against him. Only if the version of such a witness qualifies the above test as well as all other similar such tests to be applied, it can be held 10 / 14 CRA No. 1135 of 2022 that such a witness can be called as a ‘sterling witness’ whose version can be accepted by the Court without any corroboration and based on which the guilty can be punished. To be more recise, the version of the said witness on the core spectrum of the crime should remain intact while all other attendant materials, namely, oral, documentary and material objects should match the said version in material particulars in order to enable the Court trying the offence to rely on the core version to sieve the other supporting materials for holding the offender guilty of the charge alleged.” 20. Applying the well settled principles of law laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the above stated judgment and after perusing the evidence available on record, it stands established on record beyond reasonable doubt that the accused by making forceful illicit sexual intercourse, raped upon the victim. Victim/PW-8 has categorically assigned role to the accused in commission of said offence against her. Age of the victim has been determined to be less than 18 years. 21. Furthermore, Dr. Maneesha Minz (PW/06) who has been posted as Medical Officer in the District Hospital, Mahasamund conducted the medical examination of the victim and prepared medical report (Ex.P/8) according to which, she found that sexual intercourse had been made with the victim some time before the examination which has been proved by the FSL report (Ex.P/32) which has been exhibited by Sub- Inspector Nidhi Sahu (PW-09), according to which semen stains and 11 / 14 CRA No. 1135 of 2022 human sperm have been found in the underwear seized from the accused and the slide swab and panty related to the victim. The FSL report and the statement of the doctor / PW-6 confirm sexual intercourse with the victim. 22. Upon cumulative analysis of the statement of the victim, it is found that the victim in her cross-examination, she has certainly said that she does not remember whether the accused had talked about marrying her and loving her or not and at the end of paragraph 5 of the cross-examination, when she was being asked about the physical relationship being established with her consent, the victim had said that the physical relationship was established with her own consent, however it has been established by the prosecution that the victim was minor as she was below 16 years of age at the time of alleged incident; in such a circumstance, the consent of the victim is immaterial or irrelevant, as the law presumes that a minor is incapable of giving valid consent to a physical relationship. Therefore, despite the victim’s statement, the age factor overrides the issue of consent, rendering any purported consent immaterial to the determination of the offense. Thus, having aforesaid materials on record, compels us to hold that prosecution has proved on record beyond reasonable doubt, that on the date of incident, the accused knowingly raped upon the victim. Hence the trial Court has rightly appreciated the entire facts of the case and convicted the accused under Section 376 (2)(n)(3) of the IPC. 23. As far as the act of abduction regarding the offence under Sections 363 12 / 14 CRA No. 1135 of 2022 & 366 is concerned, the victim stated that on 25/04/2018, there was a wedding in her locality and she went to see the wedding procession, where she met the accused on the way. At that time, the accused took her to Hiramani's house on the pretext of talking to her about something and at that time Hiramani's house was empty and there was no one in it, wherein the accused had physical relations with her several times on the pretext of marriage. Further the statements made by the witnesses regarding the recovery of the victim from the accused's custody from Hiramani's house in Dakbanglapara, Gariaband could not be contradicted and the same remained unchallenged during cross-examination. As there was no contradiction to these testimonies, the recovery of the victim from the custody of the accused at the specified location stands duly established and proved. Hence the trial has rightly convicted the accused under Section 363 & 366 of the IPC, the finding recorded by the trial Court is hereby affirmed. 24. The accused has also been convicted nder Section 3(2)(v) of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, which deals with punishment for certain offenses under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) by imposing a punishment of imprisonment for life and a fine, if the accused commits an offense against a person or property with the knowledge that such person belongs to a Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST). So far as the Section 3(2)(v) of the SC/ST Act is concerned, the evidence presented by the prosecution establishes that the accused belongs to the Raut/Yadav caste and the victim belongs to the Gada caste and is a member of the Scheduled Caste category. Since the 13 / 14 CRA No. 1135 of 2022 accused belonged to the same locality as the victim, it can be presumed that he was well aware of the caste of the victim. The mother of the victim (PW-1) and the father of the victim (PW-2) have also stated that the accused knew their caste beforehand. Thus, from the entire evidence available and discussed above in the case, it is proved that the accused lured the minor victim from the guardianship of her parents and without their consent, took her to Hiramani's house in the same locality by kidnapping her and the said kidnapping was done with the intention of marriage or illicit sexual intercourse, knowing that the victim to be a girl belonging to Scheduled Caste and below 16 years of age, he raped her by having sexual intercourse with her several times and also committed aggravated penetrative sexual assault on the victim. Thus, the trial Court has rightly appreciated the entire facts of the case in its true perspective and justifiably convicted the accused under Section 3(2)(v) of the SC/ ST Act. 25. Considering the entire facts and circumstances of the case and upon cumulative analysis of the evidence available on record, this Court comes to the conclusion that the prosecution has succeeded in proving its case beyond all reasonable doubts against the appellant. The conviction and sentenced as awarded by the trial Court is hereby upheld. The present appeal lacks merit and is accordingly dismissed. The appellant/accused is currently in jail. He shall remain in custody to undergo and serve the remaining period of his sentence, as imposed by the Court. 14 / 14 CRA No. 1135 of 2022 26. Registry is directed to send a copy of this judgment to the concerned Superintendent of Jail where the appellant is undergoing the jail sentence to serve the same on the appellant informing him that he is at liberty to assail the present judgment passed by this Court by preferring an appeal before the Hon’ble Supreme Court with the assistance of High Court Legal Services Committee or the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee. 27. Let a copy of this judgment and the original record be transmitted to the trial Court concerned forthwith for necessary information and compliance. Sd/- Sd/- (Bibhu Datta Guru) (Ramesh Sinha) Judge Chief Justice $. Bhilwar
Arguments
7. Learned counsel appearing for the State, per contra, would submit that the age of the victim being under 18 years, which is otherwise remains unchallenged during entire cross-examination, stands proved. He would submit that the MLC confirms the commission of rape upon the prosecutrix, therefore, the impugned judgment of conviction and order of sentence passed by learned Trial Court is just and proper and warrants no interference of this court. 8. We have heard learned counsel for the parties and considered their rival submissions made herein-above and also went through the original records of the learned trial Court with utmost circumspection and carefully as well. 9. The first question for consideration would be that whether the victim was minor on the date of incident or not. 10. As per the evidence of the investigating officer of the case, Sub- Inspector Nidhi Sahu (PW-09), Mrs. Satrupa Vipre (PW-04), Assistant Teacher, the Dakhil Kharij Register alongwith the affidavit of Government Primary School, Dakbangla, Gariaband related to the date of birth of the victim have been seized as per seizure memo Ex.P-28. The progress report of Class 4th has also been seized from the mother of 5 / 14 CRA No. 1135 of 2022 the victim. According to Dakhil Kharij Register, the date of birth of the victim is mentioned as 18/06/2005 and in the progress report Ex.P.-01 also the date of birth of the victim is mentioned as 18/06/2005 according to which on the date of the alleged incident i.e. 24/05/2018, the age of the victim is 12 years 11 months and 06 days. Further the statement of the father (PW-02) of the victim has also been recorded, wherein he has stated that the age of the victim is about 14-15 years and in Paragraph- 04, the witness has also stated that the victim was studying in class 6 th at the time of the alleged incident. PW-02 has accepted in Paragraph-09 of his cross-examination that the victim's date of birth was written in school by guesswork. As far as the estimation of age is concerned, in the above circumstances there can certainly be a difference of two to four months, but even if an illiterate parent cannot tell the exact date of birth of his children, he knows the approximate age of his children. In this case, the oral statements of the victim and her parents regarding the age of the victim are corroborated by the facts written in the school documents. It is based on the date of birth and there is no evidence or document to the contrary. Thus, the above oral and documentary evidence presented in the case proves that the victim was below 16 years of age and a minor at the time of the alleged incident. 11. Therefore, for want of challenge and proved materials available on record, we do not have any hesitation in holding that the victim on the date of incident being below the age of 18 years, is 'child' within the meaning of section 2(d) of the POCSO Act. 6 / 14 CRA No. 1135 of 2022 12. The next question for consideration would come, whether the appellant committed such heinous act punishable under Section 376 (2)(n)(3) of IPC with the Victim or not? 13. Mother of the victim has been examined as PW-01 who stated in her examination that about five months before the date of incident, a marriage procession had come from Raipur to her locality and at around 5:00 pm her daughter/victim left the house saying that she was going to see the procession, however she did not return. Then she went to the procession and searched for the victim and also searched for her the next day at night but the victim was not found and thereafter she went to Gariaband police station and lodged a missing report and First Information Report. The father of the victim (PW-02) has also given a statement similar to that of the mother of the victim regarding disappearance of the victim. 14. Sub-Inspector Nidhi Sahu (PW-09) has stated that after the FIR was registered regarding the missing of the victim on 27/04/2018, on the oral information of the mother of the victim, FIR was registered against the accused. Sub-Inspector, Nidhi Sahu (PW-09) has stated that on 28/04/2018, the victim was recovered from the custody of the accused from Dakbanglapara, Gariaband. The mother of the victim (PW-01) has also stated that the accused and the victim were recovered by the police from the vacant house of Hiramani three days after the victim left her house. She has also stated that when she had questioned the victim, she had told that the accused had kept her in Hiramani's house and she was 7 / 14 CRA No. 1135 of 2022 asking her to go home but the accused had beaten her, so she was with him. The father of the victim (PW-02) has also admitted in the prosecution's point of view that the victim was recovered by the police from the vacant house of Hiramani in his locality three days after the incident. 15. The victim has been examined as PW-8, who has categorically stated that she knows the accused, he is from her locality. She belong to the Gada caste. She stated that she does not know which caste the accused belongs to. She does not know whether the accused knows that her caste is Gada or not. She admitted the fact that the accused had made forceful sexual intercourse with her. The accused had physical relation with her in Hiramani's house in the Dakbangla. She stated that she does not know the date of the incident. The police recovered her from Hiramani's house and thereafter took her to the police station and subsequently to the hospital in Chhura where she was examined. At this stage, the victim has partially been declared hostile. She further stated that the accused used to said her that he loves her. Whenever she used to go somewhere, he tried to talk to her. She stated that one day when there was no one in the accused's house, he took her to his house, at that time, he had made illicit sexual intercourse with her in his house on the pretext of marriage. The accused had told her not to tell anyone about the incident and after that he had sex with her many times on the pretext of marriage. She stated that on 25/04/2018, there was a wedding in her locality and she went to see the wedding procession, where she met the accused on the way. At that time, the accused took her to Hiramani's house on the pretext of 8 / 14 CRA No. 1135 of 2022 talking to her about something and at that time Hiramani's house was vacant and there was no one in it, wherein the accused had physical relations with her several times. 16. If the testimony of the victim is trustworthy and totality of the circumstances appearing on the record of the case disclose that the victim does not have a strong motive to falsely implicate the person charged, the Court should ordinarily have no hesitation in accepting her/his evidence. 17. It has also become almost settled position of law that conviction can be based on the solitary statement of victim, provided same inspires confidence of the court. 18. In cases under the POCSO Act, a ‘sterling’ witness refers to a witness whose testimony is of high quality on caliber to the extent that the Court can accept their version of events without requiring additional corroboration. The Supreme Court in ‘n’ numbers of cases, has observed that the testimony of a victim can be sufficient for conviction, if it is trustworthy and of sterling quality. 19. The Supreme Court in the matter of Rai Sandeep alias Deenu v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2012 (8) SCC 21 held as under:-