High Court
Case Details
Crl.A. 22/2012 BEFORE HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE B.D.AGARWAL This appeal is directed against the judgment dated 18.1.2012 passed by the learn ed Sessions Judge, Goalpara in Sessions Case No.18 of 2011, whereby the learned Sessions Judge has convicted the appellant under Section 417 of the IPC. After convicting the appellant for the aforesaid offence he has been sentenced to unde rgo rigorous imprisonment for one year and also to pay fine of Rs.10,000/-(Rupee s Ten thousand) with default stipulation of further rigorous imprisonment for 3( three)months. 2. red this appeal. Being aggrieved with the conviction and sentence, the convict has prefer
Legal Reasoning
3. Heard Mr. H Das, learned counsel for the appellant and Mr. NJ Dutta, lea rned Additional Public Prosecutor for the State. I have also gone through the im pugned judgment and the evidence tendered by the prosecution as well the accused in the trial court. 4. To establish the aforesaid offence, the prosecution has examined altoget her seven witnesses. The witnesses include the mother, victim girl and her siste r being PWs- 1, 2 and 3 respectively; the medical Officer as PW-4; co-villagers as PWs- 5 and 6 and the Investigating Officer as PW-7. The defence case was of t otal denial and no evidence in defence was tendered. 5. Though the case was initially registered under Sections 376/493/417 of t he IPC, the accused was finally tried for the offence under Section 376 IPC and after the trial he has been convicted under Section 417 of the IPC. 6. The prosecution case in brief is that both the victim and the accused we re from same village and the accused had developed intimacy with the victim girl . On the promise of marriage the accused /appellant established physical relatio nship with the victim girl for a period of about two years and as a result of co -habitation the victim girl became pregnant and ultimately gave birth to a child . 7. PWs-1, 2 and 3 have reiterated the entire story as to how the accused de veloped intimacy with the victim girl. PW-1 has further deposed that the accused even stayed in their house overnight occasionally. The victim girl has also dep osed that as a result of sexual intercourse by the accused she became pregnant a nd when the accused was requested to arrange for termination of her pregnancy th e accused advised her not to take any risk as she was already in advance stage o f pregnancy. Simultaneously, the accused promised to formally marry her within a short period. All three witnesses have also deposed that when the accused did n ot turn up to marry the victim girl, they visited the house of the accused twice and, on both the occasions, the accused assured them that he will perform the m arriage. Ultimately, the accused abandoned the victim girl compelling the mother to lodge the FIR. PW-3 is the younger sister of the victim girl and she has als o corroborated the relationship between the accused and the victim by deposing t hat she had seen the accused sleeping with her sister. This statement was made i n the cross-examination. 8. It is true that PWs-1 and 2 have admitted that a village meeting was als o held to decide the illicit relationship of the accused with PW-2. However, in the village meeting the accused was given clean chit and the victim girl was hel d responsible for their illicit relationship. However, no person who had attende d the meeting was examined by the prosecution to prove the proceedings of the me eting. Even otherwise PW-1 has deposed in the cross-examination that they were o stracised by the villagers. In view of this statement, it can be safely presumed that all the villagers were hostile to the victim’s family and that must be the reason that the victim was held responsible for the illicit relationship. 9. The above apart the accused did not put up any strong defence in the cro ss-examination of the witnesses that the victim girl had intimacy or physical re lationship with any other boy. During trial no prayer was also made on behalf of the accused to ask for DNA test of the victim girl to prove that she did not co nceive the child through the accused. It may be mentioned here that the victim g irl delivered a child within one month of lodging of the FIR. Hence, the accused could have made such a prayer in the trial court to prove his innocence. Even o therwise I do not find any material contradiction in the testimony of PWs-1, 2 a nd 3 nor is there any evidence to take a view that the accused was falsely impli cated in the case due to any rivalry or dispute. The fact of pregnancy has also been corroborated by the medical officer. For the foregoing reasons, I affirm the conviction of the appellant unde 10. r Section 417 of the IPC. 11. With regard to the quantum of sentence, Mr. Das, learned counsel for the appellant submitted that the appellant is working as Home Guard and in view of the fact that the victim was a consenting party for their sexual relationship fo r a pretty long period the substantive sentence may be reduced. 12. In view of the aforesaid submissions, the sentence of rigorous imprisonm ent is reduced to the period of 6(six) months. The amount of fine of Rs.10,000/- is hereby maintained and as stated by the learned counsel the fine amount has a lready been deposited in the trial court on 12.3.2012. The said amount shall be paid to the victim girl by the trial court as compensation. 13. Section 357-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (as amended) also provides payment of compensation by the State. Since the victim was a young girl of 19 years and since she has already delivered an illegitimate child, the Stat e of Assam is directed to pay compensation of Rs.75,000/-(Seventy Five Thousand) only. 14. The amount of compensation shall be deposited by the State in the Court of learned Sessions Judge, Goalpara within a period of 2(two)months from the da te of receipt of a copy of this Judgment. On deposit of the compensation amount, the same shall be paid to the victim girl, after obtaining proper receipt by th e Court. 12. Registry is directed to transmit a copy of this judgment to the Chief Se cretary, Government of Assam and also to the learned Sessions Judge, Goalpara fo r necessary action. 13. Return the LCR.