IMPORTANT POINT
The court ruled that a defendant cannot receive separate sentences for identical acts under different statutes, affirming conviction for one count while reducing the life sentence to 10 years based on prior legal standards.

JUDGMENT :

SANJAY K. AGRAWAL, J.

1. This criminal appeal filed by the accused-appellant under Section 374(2) of Cr.P.C. is directed against the impugned judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 02.08.2018, passed in Special Criminal Case No. 42 of 2017 (State of Chhattisgarh v. Puran Vishal), by the Special Judge, constituted under the provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (for brevity the “POCSO Act”) Mahasamund (C.G.) whereby he has been convicted and sentenced as under:

All the sentences are directed to run concurrently.

2 The case of the prosecution, in short, is that between April, 2017 to September, 2017, at Government Primary School of Village Baldideehi, which comes within the ambit of Police Station Sankra, District Mahasamund (CG), the accused-appellant, being a public servant, posted as Government Teacher of the said school, committed aggravated penetrative sexual assault with minor victims No. 01, 02 & 03 (PW-13, PW-12 & PW-11 respectively) multiple time against their will and consent and also threatened them to kill and thereby, said to have committed the aforesaid offences in question.

3. The further case of the prosecution is that when father of the victim No. 02 (PW-12), namely, Anand Patel (PW-01) reported the matter to the police by submitting written complaint (Ex.P/01), FIR (Ex.P/01) was registered against the appellant and wheels of investigation started running, in which, nazari naksha was prepared vide Ex.P/08. After obtaining necessary consent and permission, the victims No. 01, 02 & 03 (PW-13, PW-12 & PW-11 respectively) were subjected to medical examination, which was conducted by Dr. Tara Agrawal (PW-14). As per MLC reports (Ex.P/27 to Ex.P/31) of the respective victims No. 1 to 03, it has been opined that injuries were found over the bodies of all the victims and there are signs of sexual intercourse on all of them. Further, slides of all the victims were prepared and handed over to the police alongwith their undergarments (panties) for analysis, which was seized vide Ex.P/41. Thereafter, the accused-appellant was arrested and sent for medical examination. Appellant’s MLC report is Ex.P/20 to P/21 and his undergarment was also seized vide Ex.P/40. The aforesaid seized articles were sent for chemical examination and, as per FSL report (Ex.P/47), it has been mentioned that stains of human sperm/semen were found on the slides and undergarments (panties) of victim No. 01 (PW-13) and victim No. 03 (PW-11). Further, in order to ascertain the correct age of the victims, their mark-sheet (Article-A/1C, Article-A/2C & Article-3 A-C) and copies of relevant dakhila kharij register (Article A/4 to A/06) were obtained, wherein the date of birth of victim No. 01 (PW-13) has been mentioned as 16.06.2007, date of birth of victim No. 02 (PW-12) has been mentioned as 10.05.2007 and date of birth of victim No. 03 (PW-11) has been mentioned as 27.08.2007, meaning thereby, all the victims were minor aged about 9-10 years (below 12 years) on the date of offence. Thereafter, statement of witnesses were recorded and, after due investigation, the appellant was charge-sheeted for the aforesaid offences in the competent criminal Court having jurisdiction, which was thereafter committed to the