The court emphasized the reliability and importance of DNA evidence in establishing guilt and the need to consider mitigating circumstances in sentencing.

Anjuli Palo, J.

1. The above criminal appeal is preferred by the appellant, to set aside the impugned judgment of conviction and sentence. The criminal reference (CRRFC No. 04/2017) has been referred under Section 366 (A) of Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 by Second Addl. Session Judge, Multai, District Betul. Both these cases arise out of judgment dated 22.06.2017 passed in Session Trial No. 13/2017 whereby the appellant has been convicted and sentenced as under, therefore are being decided by this common judgment:

Section	Act	Sentence	Fine	In default of fine
449	Indian Penal Code	R.I. for Life Imprisonment	Rs. 25,000/-	R.I. For 1 year
376A	Indian Penal Code	Death Sentence	-	-
376D	Indian Penal Code	R.I. for life imprisonment	Rs. 25,000/-	R.I. for 1 year
302	Indian Penal Code	Death Sentence	Rs. 25,000/-	R.I. For 1 year
6	Protection of Children from Sexual Offence	(awarded death sentence in the major offence under Section 376-A of IPC)

2. Brief facts of the prosecution case is that, appellant is the uncle of the victim. The victim was a minor girl aged about 13 years. On 16.11.2016 at about 3:00 to 5:30 p.m. she was alone at her house in village Raiseda, Police Station Amla, District Betul. Her parents had gone to village Deopipariya leaving behind their children at home. At the time of incident, the siblings of the victim were not present at the house with the victim. At about 4:30 pm, appellant along with his two friends Mukesh and Ashok (both are juvenile) came there. Finding her alone, appellant and his juvenile friends committed rape one after the other. After committing rape, they killed her by hitting her head with a stone, strangulated her and hanged her from the roof with a red coloured saree. When her brother Rupesh (PW-6) and sister Rubina (PW-5) returned home from the school, they saw their sister/victim dead, hanging from the roof and the appellant along with other accused persons namely Mukesh and Ashok were present on the spot. Rupesh, brother of the victim ran towards the village and called Laxman and other persons for help. In the meanwhile, the body of the victim was brought down by appellant. Laxman (PW-4) along with other persons came there and saw the injuries of the victim. They saw that there was no clothes on the lower part of her body, there were injuries over her neck and bleeding from her private genital parts. Laxman informed the parents of the victim and reported the incident to the Police Station Amla. Offence was registered against the appellant and his associates (juvenile in conflict with law). After investigation, charge-sheet was filed by the police under Section 376(A)(D), 449, 302 of IPC r/w Section 5(i)(j)(k)/6 and Section 4 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 before the concerned Court.

3. After committal of the case, learned Trial Court framed charges under Section 449, 376(A)(D), 302 of Indian Penal Code and Section 6 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. The appellant abjured his guilt and pleaded that he is innocent and was falsely implicated by the police.

4. After considering the entire evidence on record, the learned trial Court found the appellant guilty of committing the aforesaid offences. With regard to the above, the trial Court found that the ocular evidence is duly corroborated by the medical evidence and DNA profile report of the victim tallied with the DNA sample of the appellant. At the time of incident, the victim was aged about 13 years. She sustained severe injuries on her neck and genital parts. Doctors and experts proved that after committing gang rape with her, the victim was killed by strangulation and she was hanged from the roof, so that it would look like a case of suicide. Thus, appellant was convicted and sentenced as mentioned in paragraph one of this judgment.

5. The