JUDGMENT

A. Pasayat, J: Blinded by lust, the petitioner committed rape on a blind girl. That is the allegation. The accusation was accepted by the learned Assistant Sessions Judge-cum-Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bhubaneswar, who convicted the petitioner under section 376 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (in short 'IPC') and sentenced him to rigorous imprisonment for seven years. Additionally, he found that the petitioner was guilty under sections 366 and 342, IPC and awarded sentences of two years and three months rigorous imprisonment respectively. The sentences were directed to run concurrently. In appeal, the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Bhubaneswar upheld the convictions and sentences.

2. Shorn of unnecessary details, the factual backdrop as depicted by the prosecution is that the prosecutrix, a blind girl (P.W.1) used to go to Bhubaneswar for trainings in music. On 6.3.1987, she was traveling from Cuttack to Bhubaneswar by bus. The petitioner was a co-passenger and when the prosecutrix got down at Bhubaneswar and took a rickshaw to go to her destination, the, petitioner sat by her side and traveled with her. Instead of dropping her at her destination, she was tak