1. This is a sordid story of a poor girl who was aged 15 years at the time of incident and who was also a differently abled person both deaf and dumb, who was raped on the fateful day and her modesty was outraged. When the case comes up before the Court for trial, her own father and mother turned hostile by denying the incident and the victim herself who clearly explains the incident during her chief examination by sign language, after 6 days when she was cross examined, denies the whole incident. This is a pathetic state of affairs that prevails in remote and small villages where a victim who has been subjected to rape or attempted to be raped, retract the very incident itself by means of pressure exerted on her and her family or fearing future repercussions. We are living in such peculiar state of affairs where more than the accused, it is the victim who fears getting exposed to the outside world, consequent to the dastardly crime of rape. Keeping this in mind the parliament stepped in the year 2013 and brought an amendment to Section 164 Cr.P.C. Wherein, Sub Section 5-A was inserted, making it mandatory for the police to immediately take the victim to the Magistrate for the purpose of recording her statement under Section 164 Cr.P.C and the proviso to the Sub Section specifically provides that when such statement is made by a person who is temporarily or permanently, mentally or physically disabled to be video-graphed and the statement shall be considered as a statement in lieu of examination in chief, such that, the maker of the statement can be cross examined on such statements, without the need for recording the same at the time of trial.

2. Brief facts of the prosecution case:-

On 25.07.2005, at about 4 p.m. when the victim was near the sugar cane field grazing the cow, the accused came to the scene of occurrence and caught hold of the victim and pushed her down and bite her lips and thereafter committed rape upon her. At about 5 p.m., on the same day, the victim came home crying and told her mother (PW1) about the incident by sign language. The victim took her mother to the scene of occurrence and also identified the accused person who on seeing the mother and the victim, ran away from the spot. The mother (PW1) informed about the incident to the father (PW2) and both of them took the victim to Pappireddipatti Government Hospital and admitted her. The Doctor in the Hospital examined and gave initial treatment and thereafter referred the victim to Dharmapuri Government Hospital. The victim was admitted at Dharmapuri Government Hospital .

2.1. The information was sent to the respondent police and the police came to the hospital on 26.07.2005 and recorded the statement of PW1 and reduced it into a complaint (Ex.P1). The respondent police recorded the statements in the presence of PW9, who is a teacher in the Dharmapuri Deaf and Dumb Government School, who explained the sign language of the victim who described the incident.

2.2. Based on the complaint, First Information Report was registered in Crime No.133 of 2005, for an offence under Section 376 (1) of IPC and investigation was taken up by PW12, who took statements from the witnesses, and also prepared the Observation Mahazar and Rough Sketch in the presence of witnesses. The investigating officer also gave a requisition letter to the learned Judicial Magistrate (Ex.P10, P16 and P17) and seized the victim girl's dress and took her to the Doctor for conducting medical examination and the victim girl was examined by PW7. The accused was arrested and he was also taken for examination to the Doctor and he was examined by PW8.

2.3. On completion of the investigation, a final report was filed by the respondent police and based on the same, charges were framed against the accused for an offence under Section 376 (1) of IPC.

3. The prosecution examined PW1 to PW12 as witnesses and marked Exhibits P1 to P18 and MO1 to MO7, in order to substantiate the case.

4. The trial Court o