The legal principle established in the judgment is that the court may rely on evidence such as DNA testing to establish the guilt of the accused, and the benefit of the doubt may be rejected based on conclusive evidence.

JUDGMENT

1. Heard Shri D. A. Sonawane, learned counsel appointed under the Legal Aid Scheme to appear on behalf of the appellant, and Shri M. J. Khan learned A.P.P. for respondent/State.

2. This appeal is directed against the judgment and order dated 27/10/2016 made by the Special Judge and Additional Sessions Judge (Link Court), Mehkar in Special POCSO Case No. 2/2015 convicting inter alia the appellant for the offense under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO) and Section 11 of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 (the Act of 2006). The appellant has been sentenced to life imprisonment and fined for the other offenses for which he has been convicted.

3. The records indicate that along with the appellant, eight other accused persons were also tried for various offenses. However, some of them have been acquitted and only a few of them have been convicted for certain minor offenses. In this appeal, however, we are only concerned with the conviction and sentencing of the appellant as aforesaid.

4. The prosecution version is that the victim (name withheld) was, at the time of the commission of the offense, a minor (about 14 years). She was the daughter of the appellant- Prakash. The appellant was alleged to have repeatedly raped her, as a result of which she conceived twice and had to be aborted. She was then married off while still a minor to one Santosh. Soon after the marriage, her mother-in-law discovered that she was pregnant [ 4 1/2 months gone.] Thereafter, the victim with the help of her mother-inlaw complained against the appellant and his brother repeatedly raped her over a period of about 18 months in the past.

5. The Special Court, based on the evidence on record, acquitted the appellant 's brother for want of conclusive evidence. Some of the co-accused were convicted for the offense under the Act of 2006 and fined. However, the Special Court found that the appellant was guilty of offenses under Section 376 of the IPC, Section 6 of the POCSO Act, and Section 11 of the Act of 2006 and sentenced him inter alia to life imprisonment. Hence, the present appeal.

6. Shri Sonawane, learned counsel appointed under the Legal Aid Scheme to appear on behalf of the appellant raised the following grounds in support of this appeal.

(a) that there was no credible evidence on record to establish the correct age of the victim and therefore, the prosecution under POCSO was quite incompetent. He submitted that the birth certificate or record of birth from Panchayat though available were suppressed by the prosecution. He submitted that the ossification test indicated that the age of the victim was between 17 and 19 years. He submitted that based on all such evidence on record, the Special Court erred in concluding that the victim was hardly 14 years of age at the time of the alleged offense. He submitted that the impugned judgment and order is therefore vitiated and deserves to be set aside on this ground itself.

(b) The victim, in this case, has not at all supported the prosecution version. Though she was declared hostile, her testimony was not shaken in the cross-examination. He submitted that the victim had clearly and categorically exonerated the appellant and even proceeded to state that her complaint was on account of pressure exerted by her mother-in-law, who was aggrieved by non-payment of dowry by the appellant. Shri Sonawane submitted that in such circumstances, it would be extremely unsafe to convict the appellant and sentence him to life imprisonment.

(c) The victim admitted that she knew her husband- Santosh even before the marriage and further she had a sexual relationship with him even before marriage. This aspect was completely ignored by the learned Sessions Judge. He submitted that no DNA fingerprinting exercise was undertaken by the prosecution to rule out the possibility of Santosh being the father of the child born. Shri Sonawa