The court established that unreliable age evidence and inconsistencies in the victim's account, coupled with her prior consent, undermined the conviction under the POCSO Act.

JUDGMENT :

A.D. JAGADISH CHANDIRA , J.

Challenging the judgment of conviction and sentence rendered by the learned Sessions Judge, Mahila Court,Tirunelveli, in Spl. Case No.68 of 2017, dated 14.11.2019, the present Criminal Appeal has been preferred by the sole accused.

2. The appellant stands convicted and sentenced as under:-

3. The case of the prosecution is as follows :-

i) The de facto complainant/victim girl (PW2) is residing at Veikalipatti th Village along with her family. She had completed 10 standard and thereafter, completed Diploma in Nursing and is working as a Nurse in Susila Hospital at Pavoorchatram, Tenkasi, for the past 1 ¼ years. The accused, who is a married man having two male children, was residing at the victim's neighboring village Lakshmipati and he was working as an Accountant in the Ramya Dairy Farm and he used to visit the victim’s paternal uncle’s house for settling account regarding supply of milk. Whenever the victim's paternal uncle was not at home, the accused used to hand over the cash to the mother of the victim/PW1. During such time, the victim got acquainted with the accused and they were having a relationship for about 1 ½ years.

(ii) During January 2016, the accused had induced the victim with the sweet coated words and asked her to marry him. When the victim had enquired him stating that he is already a married man, the accused had promised to marry the victim and take care of her too well. The accused used to give lift to the victim in his motorcycle when she returns from the hospital at 8.00 pm and whileso, on 12.03.2016, he had taken the victim in his bike after her duty and during such time, the accused had taken her to a secluded place and on the promise of marrying her, compelled her and committed penetrative sexual assault on her. Similarly, till 07.08.2016, the accused had taken her to the same place on several occasions and committed repetitive penetrative sexual assault on her, due to which, the victim became pregnant. When the victim had informed the accused that she was pregnant, the accused had informed her that he would take care of her.

(iii) While so, PW7, sister-in-law of victim, who was also working in the same hospital, found that the stomach of PW2/victim to be big and bulged and when she had enquired about the same, the victim had not revealed anything. Thereafter, on 20.08.2016, PW7 had found that PW2 was pregnant. The victim, fearing that her pregnancy would be exposed to others, had informed the same to the accused and at that time, he had intimidated her saying that she should not reveal the same to anyone and threatened to kill her parents in the event of her revealing.

(iv) Thereafter, the victim has given the complaint to the respondent on 24.08.2016 and based on her complaint/Ex.P1, the case in Crime No.16 of 2016 was registered by PW19/Annajothi, Sub-Inspector of Police for the offence under Section 6 of the POCSO Act, 2012 and under Section 506(i) of IPC. The First Information Report is Ex.P17. Thereafter, PW19 handed over the complaint to PW20/Gnanaselvam, Inspector of Police for investigation.

(v) On 25.08.2016, PW20 visited the scene of occurrence in the presence of PW5 and one Kuthalingam a