The court affirmed that the victim's age and the nature of the crime negate any claims of consent, upholding the conviction based on sufficient evidence.

JUDGMENT :

(Ashutosh Kumar, J.)

Heard Mr. Nachiketa Jha, the learned Advocate for the appellant and Mr. Abhimanyu Sharma, the learned APP for the State.

2. The sole appellant/Vikash Sah stands convicted for the offences under Section 376(1) of the Indian Penal Code (in short the I.P.C.) and Section 4 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (in short the POCSO Act, 2012) vide judgment dated 23.08.2019 passed by the learned Additional District & Sessions Judge-I-Cum-Special Judge, POCSO Act, Saran at Chapra in POCSO Case No. 5 of 2018/C.I.S. No. 39 of 2017, arising out of Mashrakh P.S. Case No. 302 of 2017. By order dated 28.08.2019, he has been sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life, to pay a fine of Rs. 50,000/-for the offence under Section 4 of the POCSO Act, 2012. In default of payment of fine, he has further been directed to undergo imprisonment for three months.

3. The victim, a seventeen years old girl, is said to have been raped by the appellant, who is her next door neighbour.

4. The occurrence had taken place on 03.08.2017. However, the report regarding the same was lodged on 24.10.2017.

5. The victim herself had initiated the case.

6. The written report lodged by her reflects that in the night of 03.08.2017, while she was sleeping on a cot in her courtyard, the appellant scaled over the wall of the house and on the point of dagger, committed rape on her. She was also threatened of being killed in case she raised alarm or reported the matter any where. She has also informed the police officer that in the night of the occurrence, only two members, namely, her grand-parents were available in the house. Her father had been working in a private company at Mumbai. Because of threats doled out to her, she informed her father about the occurrence only after a lapse of about one and half months. When her father learnt about it, he came back from Mumbai and confronted the appellant at his house. The appellant did not respond to the accusation.

7. On the basis of the afore-noted written report, a case vide Mashrakh P.S. Case No. 302 of 2017, dated 24.10.2017, was registered for investigation under Section 376 of the IPC and Section 4 of the POCSO Act, 2012.

8. The police, after investigation, submitted charge-sheet against the appellant, whereupon he was put on trial. The Trial Court, after having examined four witnesses on behalf of the prosecution including the victim, convicted and sentenced the appellant as aforesaid.

9. The main plank of argument of Mr. Nachiketa Jha, the learned Advocate defending the appellant is that the enormous delay in lodging the F.I.R. makes the accusation very doubtful. The very fact that the appellant is admittedly a neighbour of the victim, further lends credence to the proposition that the association between the appellant and the victim was out of consent and that an affair was continuing for a long time, which continued even later than the date when the occurrence is said to have been committed.

10. Along with the afore-noted proposition, Mr. Jha has also tried to impress upon this Court that the POCSO Court, before assuming the jurisdiction to try the appellant, ought to have been satisfied about the victim being a minor at the time of the occurrence. He has argued that a report by the Headmaster of the school, which has never been proved, was relied upon to hold that the victim was seventeen years of age at the time of the occurrence.

11. Adding up to these arguments, Mr. Jha has further submitted that non-examination of the grand-parents of the victim, who were present in the house; the police officer not finding any evidence of an outsider scaling over the house and; the late reporting of the F.I.R., all cumulatively indicate only towards the relationship between the appellant and the victim having gone wrong someway along the continuum and, therefore, the victim elected to file this case, perhaps, to put some kind of pressure upon the appellant, for him to