IMPORTANT POINT
Credibility of survivor's statement, corroborative evidence, and lack of defense or motive for false accusation are crucial in establishing guilt in cases of sexual offences against children.

JUDGMENT

Sanjib Banerjee, CJ. - This is a routine appeal against a judgment of conviction and the consequent order of punishment made more with a prayer and hope than with any degree of conviction.

2. The appellant herein has been convicted for the commission of an offence under Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and sentenced to undergo 15 years of rigorous imprisonment. In addition, the appellant has been fined Rs.20,000/-, which has to be paid to the victim. In default of the payment of the fine, the appellant is to suffer a further two months' imprisonment.

3. The judgment of conviction was passed on February 24, 2021 and the sentence was also pronounced on the same day. Though the appellant did not admit to having committed the offence, the order of sentence records in paragraph 6 that the appellant apparently pleaded for forgiveness and prayed to the court to award him the minimum sentence.

4. The incident is of September 25, 2016. It was a Sunday afternoon when the 11-year-old survivor was sent home from the church by her mother after the afternoon service so that she could get the food ready for the family meal. On the way home, the girl claimed a bull was coming from the other direction and she took a different route that would otherwise have taken her to her grandmother's place. While on such route, the minor girl met the appellant. The appellant apparently asked the girl to accompany him to his residence so that the appellant could return the umbrella that the appellant had borrowed from the grandmother of the girl.

5. According to the survivor, in course of her statement recorded under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and her deposition in court at the trial, a minor daughter of the appellant was with the appellant at that time. Upon reaching the appellant's residence, the appellant apparently seated his daughter in the verandah and gave her a magazine to keep her occupied. The survivor claimed that the appellant asked the survivor whether she liked him and upon the survivor indicating that she did not like the appellant, the appellant asked her a second time, grabbed her by her waist, pinned her down on the bed in the room and 'did bad thing' to the survivor. Even in the statement recorded under Section 164 of the Code, the Magistrate indicated that the survivor was hesitant in describing the actual commission of rape and only referred to the act as 'bad thing' done to her.

6. The survivor recounted that she had pain in her abdomen and upon returning home she reported the matter to her sister who promptly informed their mother. The mother also made a statement under Section 164 of the Code. In such statement she narrated that she immediately checked the private parts of the survivor and found injury marks and blood. She also described some other discharge that was present. The mother reported the matter to the father shortly thereafter and it was the common narration by both the parents of the survivor and the relevant grandmother that they went to the house of the appellant in the evening to confront him. The appellant initially denied the incident, but upon the survivor's father indicating that the truth would come out if the survivor was medically examined and if the matter was reported to the police, the appellant confessed to having committed the crime and begged for forgiveness. Such confession of the appellant was also repeated by the mother and grandmother of the survivor in course of their testimonies at the trial.

7. It appears that the relatives of the appellant persuaded the survivor's family, particularly her father, to resolve the issue through negotiation and it was the common testimony of at least three of the prosecution witnesses that three meetings were held between the members of the two families. The father of the survivor deposed that his parents or his aunt and uncle persuaded him not to compromise the matter of rape and it was only thereafter