NEW DELHI: In an over 40-year-old incident of sexual assault of a schoolgirl by her tuition teacher, Supreme Court has confirmed his guilt and sentence while ruling that courts can record conviction even in absence of injury to the prosecutrix’s private parts, when other evidence corroborates rape.
The accused had argued that rape charges could not be proved as there was no injury to the private parts of the girl and alleging that the girl’s mother, a “women of easy virtue”, was making false allegations against him.
In rape case, prosecutrix testimony enough to convict: Supreme Court
Rejecting both the arguments, a bench of Justices Sandeep Mehta and Prasanna B Varale said, “Merely because in the medical evidence, there are no major injury marks, this cannot be a reason to discard the otherwise reliable evidence of the prosecutrix.”
Writing the judgment, Justice Varale said, “It is not necessary that in each and every case in which rape is alleged there has to be an injury to the private parts of the victim and it depends on the facts and circumstances of a particular case. We reiterate that absence of injuries on the private parts of the victim is not always fatal to the case of the prosecution.”
The bench also said that it is a settled principle of criminal jurisprudence that the evidence of a prosecutrix in a case of rape carries the same value as that of an injured witness and conviction can be made on the basis of the sole testimony of the prosecutrix.
Turning to the accused’s allegation about the character of prosecutrix’s mother, the bench said the court need not go into its veracity as it has no bearing on the case. “We find no reason to accept the contention that the alleged immoral character of the mother of the prosecutrix has any bearing on the accused being falsely roped in on the basis of a concocted story.”
“The question of conviction of the accused for rape of the prosecutrix is independent and distinct. It has absolutely no connection with the character of the mother of the prosecutrix and seems to be a dire attempt at using it as a license to discredit the testimony of the prosecutrix. We find no merit in these contentions,” the bench said.
The case also reflects a sad state of affairs of the three-tier judiciary system where trial courts are far more prompt in rendering decisions in criminal cases compared to constitutional courts. The incident of sexual assault by a tuition teacher is of March 1984. The trial court convicted the man in 1986. However, Allahabad high court took 26 years to uphold the trial court verdict and SC another 15 years to do the same.
When the girl went for tuition on March 19, 1984, the teacher sent out the two other girls for different works and sexually assaulted the girl after gagging her and locking the room from inside. The other two girls knocked on the door, but it was not opened. Eventually, the grandmother of the girls came and rescued the girl. When the girl’s family attempted to lodge an FIR, the inhabitants of the mohalla and family members of the accused threatened them. Despite the threats, the FIR was lodged after some delay.