IMPORTANT POINT
In rape case conviction can be based on sole evidence of prosecutrix if creditable.

Judgment :-

Madan B. Lokur, J.

1. The question for our consideration is whether the High Court erred in not taking into account the statement and testimony of H.L. that the respondent had raped her on several occasions and thereby acquitting him. In our opinion, the High Court committed an error of law in not considering the evidence put forward by the prosecutrix (who was less than 16 years when she was raped) and ignoring the settled position in law that if the sole testimony of the prosecutrix is credible, a conviction can be based thereon without the need for any further corroboration.

The facts:

2. On 12th March 1990, PW-3 Sardara Singh, a resident of Village Farmana, lodged a complaint with PW-1 ASI Mehar Singh of Police Station Kharkhoda to the effect that his granddaughter H.L. aged about 14-15 years and staying with him had been missing since 8.00 p.m. on 27th February 1990.

According to the complainant, H.L. had left the house for answering the call of nature but did not come back. Efforts were made to trace her out, including at the residence of relatives and at her parental home in Nainital but without success. The complaint of Sardara Singh further stated that he suspected that Mohinder Singh and Satte had enticed her away.

3. The complaint was registered as a First Information Report and investigations commenced to trace out H.L.

4. On 20th March 1990 the investigating officer examined Mohinder Singh and he stated that on 27th February 1990 he and Satte took H.L. from Village Farmana to the Interstate Bus Terminal in Delhi. Their intention was to sell her to somebody through Satte and then to equally divide the proceeds. As a consequence of this, Satte took H.L. to Bareilly and sold her to Jamaluddin.

5. It appears that Sardara Singh had wrongly (and perhaps deliberately) accused Mohinder Singh of enticing away H.L. and even Mohinder Singh had given a false statement.

6. Be that as it may on 6th April 1990, PW-22 ASI Jaidev Singh located H.L. and her father and on 7th April 1990 H.L. was produced before the Judicial Magistrate Ist Class, Sonepat where her statement was recorded under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code (for short the Cr.P.C.).

7. In her statement given before the Judicial Magistrate, H.L. stated that her father worked in Nainital. Her maternal uncle Satish Prakash who got her admitted in a school at Bhainswal sometime in June 1989 had brought her to Village Farmana.

8. Satish Prakash used to take H.L. to her school every morning on his scooter. From sometime in August 1989 he started misbehaving with her. She complained about the misbehaviour to her grandmother and to her aunt (wife of Satish Prakash) but to no effect. In her statement H.L. stated that from September 1989 onwards Satish Prakash began to rape her and did so several times. He was subsequently transferred to Panipat but in the meanwhile Basti Ram (the Respondent before us) came to Bhainswal and joined a Veterinary Hospital. H.L. further stated that apart from Satish Prakash, she was also raped by Basti Ram and fed up with this unpleasant situation, she expressed a desire to go back to her parental home at Nainital.

9. H.L. then stated that on 27th February 1990 Satish Prakash and Basti Ram confined her in a quarter near the Veterinary hospital where they were working and they raped her several times. Eventually on 8th March 1990 she was taken by them to Delhi and handed over to two persons who were going to Nainital with the instructions that she should be dropped off at her parental home.

10. In her statement H.L. stated that when she went to her parental home she found that it was locked and therefore from 9th March 1990 to 20th March 1990 she lived with a neighbor, PW-19 Ram Singh who informed her father in Pant Nagar of her arrival in Nainital. On 21st March 1990 the lock of her parental home was broken and she lived there till 4th April 1990 and came to Delhi along with her father on 6th April 1990.

11. Upon completion of investigatio