IMPORTANT POINT
The significance of credible testimony, medical evidence, and contradictions in the accused's statements in establishing guilt for sexual offenses against minors.

JUDGMENT

Sanjib Banerjee; CJ. - The appellant has been convicted under Section 5(m) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and sentenced to 15 years' rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs.10,000/-. In default in payment of the fine, the appellant is to undergo simple imprisonment for a further three months.

2. The judgment of conviction was passed on April 28, 2022 and the sentence was pronounced later on the same day.

3. The first information report in this case was lodged by the mother of the survivor. The mother claimed in the complaint that the appellant herein had raped her daughter who was seven and a half years old. The FIR lodged on March 4, 2018 claimed that the incident took place on March 2, 2018.

4. Prior to the lodging of the complaint, the girl child was taken to the district hospital at Ialong for medical examination. The report reveals that she was brought to the hospital at 4:30 pm on March 3, 2018 by her mother, aunt and another. The mother recorded in her statement given to the medical examiner that a 10-year-old neighbour informed the mother of the survivor that he saw the appellant was with the girl in the jungle near her residence. Upon being so informed, the mother reportedly asked her daughter and was told that the man 'sexually assaulted her after luring her with Rs.10/- and bought 'Rum Pum'.'

5. The medical examiner recorded in the report that the survivor had claimed that her vagina had been penetrated by the appellant's penis and that there was ejaculation on her private parts. Upon the examination of the survivor's genital parts, the medical report observed in connection with the examination of the survivor's fourchette, introitus and hymen as follows:

'Laceration, red, tender on touch on Rt. side.'

6. Though the hymen was found to be intact but the laceration and tenderness was said to be as a result of penetrative activity within between 12 and 24 hours prior to the examination. The opinion expressed by the medical examiner in the report was that there were signs suggestive of recent vaginal penetration. However, the medical examiner issued a caveat to the effect that the final opinion would be expressed after receipt of the report from the forensic science laboratory. The forensic science report was referred to since the vaginal swab of the survivor was obtained and sent for examination together with the clothes that the survivor claimed to have been wearing at the time of the incident.

7. It does not appear that any forensic science laboratory report finally arrived or was presented in course of the trial. It also transpires that the narration of the incident by the 10-year-old neighbour as reported by the mother of the survivor was quite at variance with the testimony of the concerned boy at the trial. The appellant contends that in the light of the exaggerated version of the neighbour's reporting of the incident by the survivor's mother, it is evident that the survivor and her family had some angst against the appellant to bring a completely baseless charge against him.

8. The appellant also maintains that the appellant was not medically examined to ascertain whether the appellant, said to be aged 60 at the relevant time, was capable of performing sex. The appellant suggests that apart from the fact that the hymen appears to have been intact in the present case, the medical examination was conducted more than 24 hours beyond the time of the incident and, as such, the tentative opinion expressed in the medical examination report to the effect that the survivor had been subjected to sexual assault within the previous 24 hours, would not cover the time of the incident.

9. Both the survivor and the young neighbour who reported the incident to the survivor's mother rendered statements under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. The survivor was consistent in the description of the material incident, though the appellant seeks to refer to perceived inconsistencies in her