Hon'blc Apex Court in Sanjeev Kumar Gupta v. The State of uttar Pradesth, held that under clause

Counsel for the Respondent: SRI P PRABHAKAR REDDY The Court made the following: JUDGMENT I TIIE HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE J. SREENMS RAO _ cRIMINAI, APPEAL No.l009 of20l7 . ORI)ER: llhis Criminal Appeal has been filed by the State aggrieved by the Judgment passed in Spl.SC.No.8 of 2016 on the file of the Special Judge for trail of cases under Protection of Children from Sexual Offenc,:s Act - cum - lst Additional Sessions Judge, Warangal (.trial Court' for brevity) dated 31.10.2016 whereunder the respondent- accusql was acquitted for the offences punishable under Section 420, 366 and 376(2XiXn) of the Indian Penal Code ('tPC' for brevity) and Section 5O(ii) read with Section 6 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act ('POCSO' Act for brevity).

2. I{eard Mr. M. Vivekananda Reddy, learned Assistant public Prosecutor appearing for appellant/State and Sri B.Chennaiah, leamed counsel appearing for Sri P.Prabhakar Reddy, leamed counsel for respondent/accused. 3 cts of the case:

3.1. 'fhe case of the prosecution is that the victim was a minor aged only 14 years old at the time of incident. The accused, who was the mElxEnEl'e- -,EF_' ' 2 T: I I * E* $ g :: i* t i. : i victimclassmate,selderbrother,devetopedanintimaterelationship withthevictimandmadeafalsepromiseofmarriage.Approximately ten months prior to the complaint, the accused allegedly had forcible "f sexualintercoursewiththevictimatherhome'l-ater'on07'12'2013' theaccusedtookthevictimtoHyderabad,confinedherinarented house, and the victim conceived. when the victim expressed her desire to see her mother, the accused calted her mother and when they came to the house, the accused fled away and the victim was brought to the house of her Parents'

4.LearnedAssistantPubticProsecutorsubmitsthatthetrialCourt withoutproperlyappreciatingtheoralanddocumentaryevidence adducedbytheprosecutioneroneouslyacquiuedtheaccusedforthe offencesunderSection420,366and376(2)(i)(n)ofthetPCandSection 50xii) read with Section 6 of POCSO Acl He further submitted that prosecution proved the offences against the accused by producing the evidence. He further submitted that trial court has failed to consider the evidence of PW 8 and 9 who are Headmaster and Head Mistress of MPPS,Kannegundlawhospecificallystatedthatvictimwasminoras on the date of alleged incident. The prosecution also filed documentary !' 3 evidence, i.e., exhibit P5, P6 P7. The said documents clearly prove that victim vras minor as on the date of alleged incident. The trial Court without considering the exhibits P4 to P6 and evidence of PW8 and 9 came to a conclusion that the prosecution has not taken steps to send the victim girl to medical examination as required. The accused with a dishonest intention committed the offence under Section 376. Hence, the impr"rgned judgment passed by the learned trial Court is liable to be set aside and the accused is liable to be convicted for the above said offencerr

5. I'er contra, learned counsel appearing on behalf of accused veheme'ntly contended that the trial Court after evaluating the oral and documt:ntary evidence adduced by the prosecution rightly came to conclusrion that prosecution failed to prove the offences which were alleged against the accused. He further submitted that accused and victim fell into love and their marriage was solemnized and they were blesseii with one child and they are living happily. PW2 lodged complaint against the accused only on the ground that accused and PWI perfonned their marriage without her consent. He further submitted that as on the date of their marriage PWI victim was major. The trial 4 Court rightly passed the impugned judgment acquitting the accused for the above said offence by giving cogent and there are no grounds to interfere with the impugned judgment passed by the trial Court.

6. Having considered the rival submissions made by respective parties and after perusal of the material available on record, it reveals that on 07.12.2013, PWI left the house of PW2 and thereafter PW2 lodged complaint on 21.08.2014, after lapse of long period of eight months from the date of missing of her minor daughter. The impugned judgment further reveals that accused and PWI are living together and they were blessed with female child. The case of the prosecution that as on the date of offbnce, PWI is minor and the accused with a dishonest intention taken PWt and committed the offence under Section 376 is concerned the prosecution has failed to prove the same except relyng upon the deposition of PW8 and 9 and exhibit P4 and P5. However, the trial Court has rightly came to conclusion that the prosecution has failed to take ne@ssary steps in subjecting victim to age determination test.

7. The Hon'bte Apex Court in P.Yuvaprakash Vs., Sttte Rep. by Inspector of Policet by retying upon the principte laid down by | 2023 SCC OnLine 846 --.,:h I I I ! I , a 4 F 1 : 5 Hon'blc Apex Court in Sanjeev Kumar Gupta vs. The State of uttar Pradesth, held that under clause (i) of Section g4(z) in the absence of date of birth certificate issued by the competent authorities age has to be determined by the Medical ossification test. In the case on hand, the prosecution has not taken steps for conducting medical examination test to prove the victim as minor as on.the date of alleged incident. Even according to prosecution, it is not in dispute that the pwl victim and accusec[ are living together and they are blessed with female child. During the course of hearing, learned counsel appearing on behalf of accuseclbasing on the instructions furnished by the accused submits that the accused and victim Pwl are living together as wife and husband.

8. I:r cases of acquittal, the Hon'ble supreme court in Ravi sharma v- state' (Government of NCT of Delhi) and onothef, held that while dealing with an appeal against acquittal, the appellate court has to consider whether the trial court's view can be termed as a possible one, particularly when evidence on record has been analyzed,. The reason is that an order of acquittal adds up to the presumption of innocence in favour,f the accused. Thus, the appellate court has to be relatively slow in reversin&rsorder of the trial court rendering acquittal. ' IZOZZ'18 Supreme Court Cases 536 6 g. ln Ghurey Lal v. State of Uaar Pradesh3 the Hon'ble Supreme Court after referring to several Judgments regarding the settled principtes of law and the powers of appellate Court in reversing the order of acquittal, held atpara 70, as follows: "70. In the light of the above, the High Court and other appellate Courts should follow the well-settled principles crystallized by number of Judgments d tt is going to ovemtle or otherwtse disturb the trial court's acquittal: I. The appellate court may only overrule or otherwise disturb the trial court's acquittal d it has "very substantial and compelling reasons" for doing so. A number of instances arise in which the appellate cottrt would have "very substantial and compelling reasons" to discard the trial court's decision. "Very substantial and compelling reasons" exist when: i) The trial court's conclusion with regard to the facts is palpably wrong: ii) The trial court's decision was based on an etroneous view of law; iii) The trial court's judgment is likely to result in "grave miscarriage ofj us tice " ; w) 7h" entire approach of the trial court in dealing with the svidence was patently illegal; u) The trial court's judgment was manifestly uniust and unreasonable; 3 (ZOO8) l0 Supreme Court Cases 45 ! I i I I I I I I I I I I a I I : // 7 vi) The trial court has ignored the evidence or misread thematerialevidenceorhasignoredmaterialdocuments lil<edyingdeclarations/reportoftheballisticexpert,etc. vit)Thislistisintendedtobeillustrative,notexhaustive.

2. The appellate court must always give proper weight and consideration o thefindings of the trial court'

3. If two reasonable views can be reached one that leads to acquittal, the other to conviction the High Courts/appellate courts must rule infouour of the accltsed'"

10. For the foregoing reasons, this Court does not find any ground to inrerfere with the well considered judgment passed by the trial Court' I l. Accordingly, the Criminal Appeal is dismissed' Miscellaneousapplications,pendingifany'shallstandclosed' sd/- L. LAKSHMI BABU REGISTRAR ,/TR,UE COPY" N OFFICER To, l.TheSpecialJudgeforTrailofcasesUnderProtectionofChildrenFrom S ex u a r or"n JJr' ffi ,ilf' il d itd;l s essio n s J u ds e, w a ra ns a I' 2. The station noJJ" 5tri""r, porice'iiailon, Dornakal, warangal District' 3. Two CCs to tne-i-UaUie enOSFCtiiOC; High Court at Hvderabad' (OUT) 4.orulCCtoSRI.p-p-nnel{AlGRREDDYAdvocate[oPUC] 5. Twtl CD CoPies TPIUSA w- HIGH COURT DATED:2011112025 n JUDGMENT CRLA.No.1009 o12017 sHE.!( 2' lt ILtl i ., c) '': CRIMINAL APPEAL IS DISMISSED s o{'lnil k^,, \,\'