The instant criminal appeal under Section 374[2], Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 [‘the CrPC’ or ‘the Code’, for short] is directed against a Judgment and Order dated 04.12.2018 passed by the Court of learned Special Judge, POCSO, Karbi Anglong at Diphu [‘the trial court’, for short] in Special Case no. 01/2015. By the said Judgment and Order dated 04.12.2018, the accused-appellant has been convicted for committing the offence of ‘penetrative sexual assault’, defined in Section 3 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences [POCSO] Act, 2012, and he has been sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs. 5,000/-, in default of payment of fine, to undergo simple imprisonment for a further period of 2 [two] months.

2. The case of the prosecution, in brief, is that investigating machinery was set into motion when the informant as the mother of the prosecutrix, lodged a First Information Report [FIR] before the Officer In-Charge, Kheroni Police Station on 12.03.2015 in respect of an incident alleged to have occurred on 4.03.2015. In the FIR, the informant had inter alia alleged that at around 10-00 p.m. on 04.03.2015, the accused who is the husband