S. Vimala, J.

This is for the kids who know that the worst kind of fear is not the thing that makes you scream, but the one that steals your voice and keeps you silent.” - Abby Norman.

2. For a child, at times, the insecurity springs out of the conduct of the society/parents/teachers/relatives/friends or else it may be due to reasons beyond the control of the abused child. But here is a case where the voice of the screaming child is silenced by: (a) fabrication of false documents; (b) choosing the accused; (c) making the accused as a witness and the witness as the accused; and (d) making the power centers to agree for this manipulation.

3. A doting dad has turned into a drama director making his own daughter to make accusations just to make his side-kick to fit in the mould of a Villan (accused) with a dreadful prior history.

4. A person who deserves the place of the accused along with the prosecution has planned to rob even the feeble shrieks of the battered and abused vulnerable.

5. In respect of the allegation of sexual abuse of the child aged about six years, a person who is supposed to be an accused has suffered punishment as under:-

Conviction Sentence

U/s 450 IPC To undergo ten years Simple Imprisonment and to pay a fine of Rs.5,000/- in default to undergo a further period of six months simple imprisonment.

U/s 376 (2) (f) IPC (Prior to 2013 amendment) To undergo Imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs.5,000/- in default to undergo a further period of six months Simple Imprisonment.

U/s 307 IPC To undergo Imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs.5,000/- in default to undergo a further period of six months Simple Imprisonment.

5.1. The trial Court has ordered the sentences to run concurrently.

6. Unusually, in this case, the devil is in the detail. It is the case of the accused that he ought to have been the witness and the witness, P.W.8-Kaatu Raja, ought to have been the accused, if the prosecution had come out with a truthful case.

6.1. Presenting a startling beginning the learned counsel appearing for the appellant/accused would submit that this case is replica of the Tamil Feature film “Vazhaku Enn 18/9” as 21 witnesses, 18 documents apart from the material objects, though clearly establish that Kaatu Raja, P.W.8 is the accused and not the appellant herein, the trial court has erroneously convicted the appellant and therefore, it is liable to be set-aside. The further contention is that the real accused must face the trial.

7. The prosecution case is that the victim child X is the daughter of P.W.1-Rajendran and P.W.2-Meenakshi. P.W.6-Dhanalakshmi and P.W.7-Gayathri are the wife and daughter, respectively, of P.W.8-Kaatu Raja.

7.1. On 06.02.2008, in the midnight, the victim child P.W.3 was sleeping along with her parents. The parents were the tenants under P.W.8-Kaatu Raja. P.W.2, the mother of the victim, is a visually challenged lady. There had been disputes and differences of opinion between P.W.2 and P.W.6, i.e., the wives of P.W.1 and P.W.8. P.W.8-Kaatu Raja insisted that the parents of the victim girl should vacate the house immediately.

7.2. The accused was also residing in the same premises along with P.W.8-Kaatu Raja against whom P.W.7-Child 'Y' has deposed that he is guilty of child sexual abuse.

7.3. While (P.W.3) child “X” was sleeping with the parents, some unknown persons kidnapped the child, sexually abused her, beaten her and left her in a bleeding condition. Those unknown person according to the victim girl and her parents was P.W.8-Kaatu Raja, and for the prosecution, it was the accused herein.

7.4. The father of the victim child on finding that the girl child “X” who was sleeping with them was found missing, cried for help and ultimately found the child in the construction site of P.W.8. There was profuse bleeding from the private part of the victim child apart from head injury and other injuries all over the body. The child lost the consciousness also. According to the child, she was beate