Nafr High Court
Case Details
1 CRA No.1661/2021 2025:CGHC:31233-DB NAFR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR AMARDEEP CHOUBEY Digitally signed by AMARDEEP CHOUBEY Date: 2025.07.09 18:18:17 +0530 CRA No. 1661 of 2021 Tibbatlal Giri S/o Nohri Ram Giri, Aged About 45 Years R/o Bhudumar (Sayar), Chowki- Kedma, District Surajpur Chhattisgarh, District : Surajpur, Chhattisgarh versus ... Appellant State Of Chhattisgarh Through The Station House Officer, Police Station Adim Jati Kalyan (Ajk), Ambikapur, District Surguja Chhattisgarh, District : Surguja (Ambikapur), Chhattisgarh ... Respondent : Mr. Harishankar Patel, Advocate. For Appellant For Respondent/State : Mr. Sakib Ahmad, Panel Lawyer. Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha, Hon'ble Shri Hon'ble Shri Bibhu Datta Guru, Judge Judgment on Board Per Bibhu Datta Guru, Judge 08.07.2025 This criminal appeal filed by the appellant under Section 374(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short, ‘Cr.P.C.’) is directed against the impugned judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 30/11/2021, passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Fast Track Special Court(POCSO 2 CRA No.1661/2021 Act), Ambikapur District:Sarguja (C.G.) in Special Sessions Case (POCSO) No.24/2020, whereby the appellant/accused has been convicted for the offence and sentenced as under:- Conviction Under Section Section 376(2)(झ़) Sentence R.I. for life and fine of Rs.1000/-, in of the IPC default, R.I. 6 months Under Section 3(2)(v) of the SC R.I. for life and fine of Rs.1000/-, in & ST(Prevention of Atrocities) default, R.I. 6 months Act, 1989 Under Section 323 of the IPC R.I. for 1 year and fine of Rs.500/-, in default, R.I. for 3 months All the sentences are directed to run concurrently.
Legal Reasoning
1. Facts of the case, in brief, is that the victim lodged a report at P.S. Kedma on 18.07.2012, stating therein that when she went for school and reached near the Jhukhajharia forest at 9:30 a.m., the appellant/accused of her village started talking to her and told her that he will show her birds and thereafter, took her into a pit, where the appellant committed forcibly sexual intercourse with the victim by pressing her mouth and assaulted her. Based on above facts, police registered an offence against the appellant/accused. Spot map was prepared vide Ex.P-3. To ascertain the caste of victim, Caste certificate exhibited vide Ex.P- 18. Medical examination of the victim was done by Dr. J.P. Sahu (PW-2) and submitted a report vide Ex.P-4. Vaginal slides and 3 CRA No.1661/2021 undergarments of victim were seized and sent for chemical examination to FSL. After completion of investigation, the charge- sheet was filed before the concerned Court for trial in accordance with law. 2. The trial court has framed charges against the appellant for the aforementioned offence and the appellant abjured his guilt and pleaded innocence. 3. In order to establish the charge against the appellant, the prosecution examined as many as 12 witnesses and exhibited 22 documents. Statement of the appellant under Section 313 of the Cr.P.C. was recorded, wherein he has pleaded his innocence and false implication in the matter. 4. After appreciation of evidence available on record, the learned trial Court has convicted the accused/appellant and sentenced him as mentioned aforesaid in the judgment. Hence, this appeal.
Legal Reasoning
5. Learned counsel for the appellant submits that the appellant has been falsely implicated in the present case. He submits that there is no eye witness in the case and no injuries were found on the body of the victim, as per medical examination report. He further submits that the trial Court failed to appreciate the evidence and documents placed before it in its proper perspective. Also, looking to the entire evidence adduced by the prosecution, the alleged offence is not made out against the appellant. As such, the criminal appeal deserves to be allowed and the impugned 4 CRA No.1661/2021 judgment deserves to be set aside. 6. On the other hand, learned counsel for the State opposes the submissions made by the learned counsel for the appellant and submits that the prosecution has proved its case beyond reasonable doubt the learned trial Court after considering the material available on record has rightly convicted and sentenced the appellant, in which no interference is called for. 7. We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and perused the record with utmost circumspection. 8. PW-5, victim stated in her evidence that on the date of incident, when she was going to school, on the way, she met her neighbor- appellant. He told her that he will show her birds. Thereafter, she went with him and then the appellant caught her, took her into the pit, removed her knickers and committed forcibly sexual intercourse with her. She stated that at the time when the appellant committing sexual intercourse, she was screaming in pain, then, the appellant assaulted her and pressed her mouth, due to which, she started crying. After sometime, the appellant left her and fled away from the spot. She further stated that, instead of going to school, she came back to home with crying and told her parents about the incident. 9. PW-12, father of the victim stated in his evidence that on the date of incident, his daughter went for school at 8-9 a.m. after having breakfast and returned home weeping at around 10 a.m. He 5 CRA No.1661/2021 stated that the eyes and cheeks of his daughter/victim were looking red and she was drenched in sweat. When he asked, the victim told that the accused/appellant took her on the way saying that he would show her the birds and took her to a pit in Jhukhajharia forest and raped her. The victim walked herself from the spot to her home and she unable to walk properly due to the injury. He further stated that the victim was assaulted by the appellant/accused too. The mother of the victim i.e. PW-4 has also fully corroborated the statement of her husband i.e. father of victim PW-12. 10.PW-2, Dr. J.P. Sahu, conducted the medical examination of victim and submitted a medical report vide Ex.P-4, in which, he found that on separating the victim’s labia minora, the hymen membrane was torn, which was congested with redness and opined that since the victim’s hymen was torn, sexual intercourse must have taken place with the victim. Two slides were prepared and sent to chemical examination. 11.As per FSL report Ex. P-21, human sperm was found on the articles A and B i.e. vaginal slides and undergarment of the victim. 12.The Supreme Court in the matter of Rai Sandeep alias Deenu v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2012 (8) SCC 21 held as under:- “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 6 CRA No.1661/2021 position to accept it for its face 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 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 7 CRA No.1661/2021 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.” 13.Also, the Supreme Court in the matter of State of Maharashtra vs Chandraprakash Kewal Chand Jain, 1990 SCC 550 held as under:- “A prosecutrix of a sex-offence cannot be put on par with an accomplice. She is in fact a victim of the crime. The Evidence Act nowhere says that her evidence cannot be accepted unless it is corroborated in material particulars. She is undoubtedly a competent witness under Section 118 and her evidence must receive the same weight as is attached to an injured in cases of physical violence. The same degree of care and caution must attach in the evaluation of her evidence as in the case of an injured complainant or witness and no more. What is necessary is that the Court must be conscious of the fact that it is dealing with the evidence of a person who is interested in the outcome of the charge levelled by her. If the Court keeps this in mind and feels satisfied that it can act on the evidence of the prosecutrix. There is no rule of law or practice incorporated in the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (in short ‘Evidence Act’) similar to illustration (b) to Section 114 which requires it to look for corroboration. If for some reason the Court is hesitant to place implicit reliance on the testimony of the prosecutrix it may look for 8 CRA No.1661/2021 evidence which may lend assurance to her testimony short of corroboration required in the case of an accomplice. The nature of evidence required to lend assurance to the testimony of the prosecutrix must necessarily depend on the facts and circumstances of each case. But if a prosecutrix is an adult and of full understanding the Court is entitled to base a conviction on her evidence unless the same is own to be infirm and not trustworthy. If the totality of the circumstances appearing on the record of the case discloses that the prosecutrix does not have a strong motive to falsely involve the person charged, the Court should ordinarily have no hesitation in accepting her evidence.” 14.Reverting to the facts of the present case in light of above principles of law laid down by their Lordships of the Supreme Court, it is quite vivid that from the statement of victim (PW-5) that on the date of incident, when she was going to school in the morning and reached near the forest, the appellant stopped her and on the pretext of showing her birds in the forest, the appellant took her into a pit, where he committed sexual intercourse with her. At that time, victim was screaming in pain and started crying, then the appellant pressed her mouth and assaulted her. Thereafter, the appellant left the victim and fled away from the spot. 15. From the statement of PW-12, father of victim, the victim came home at around 10 a.m. in the morning and instead of going to school, she returned home with crying and narrated whole 9 CRA No.1661/2021 incident to him. He stated that the victim was unable to walk and screaming in pain. The mother of the victim i.e. PW-4 has also fully corroborated the statement of her husband i.e. father of victim PW-12. Further looking to the statement of Dr. J.P. Sahu (PW-2), who conducted the medical examination of victim and submitted a report vide Ex.P-20, in which, he opined that the victim's hymen was torn and sexual intercourse must have taken place with the victim. FSL report is positive as the human sperm was found on the undergarment of the victim and vaginal slides prepared by the Doctor. 16.From the material available on record and from the documents exhibited during trail as also from the evidence adduced by the witnesses, it is crystal clear that the victim belongs to Scheduled Tribe community. It is also not in dispute that the appellant does not belong to SC/ST community. Thus, the conviction and sentence imposed under Section 3(2)(v) of the SC/ST Act, is just and proper. 17. In view of foregoing discussion, we are of the considered opinion that the appellant committed sexual intercourse with her and also assaulted her and further the fact that the victim belongs to Scheduled Tribe community, therefore, we have no hesitation in accepting the evidence of victim. Thus, the trial Court has rightly convicted the appellant for the aforesaid offence. 18.In the result, this Court comes to the conclusion that the 10 CRA No.1661/2021 prosecution has succeeded in proving its case beyond all reasonable doubts against the appellant. The conviction and sentence as awarded by the trial court to the appellant is hereby upheld. The present criminal appeal lacks merit and is accordingly dismissed. 19.The appellant is stated to be in jail and he shall serve out the remaining period of jail sentence as awarded to him by the learned trial Court. 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. 20. The Registry is directed to transmit the certified copy of this judgment along with the record to the trial Court concerned for necessary information and compliance. SD/- SD/- (Bibhu Datta Guru) (Ramesh Sinha) Judge Chief Justice Amardeep/Shoaib