IMPORTANT POINT
The main legal point established in the judgment is the reliance on the victim's consistent statements, corroboration of evidence, and the interpretation of legal provisions to uphold the conviction under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

JUDGMENT

1. The appellant has been convicted, inter alia, under Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. In addition, the appellant has been fined Rs.50,000/-; and, in default of payment thereof, the appellant has to suffer another year's imprisonment.

2. The victim in this case was about 13 years old at the time that the initial act of sexual assault was alleged to have been committed by the appellant. The victim asserted that she had been raped on at least three other occasions. There is a statement of the appellant recorded under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 wherein he, apparently, confessed to having raped his minor step-daughter at least four times and being the father of the girl-child that the victim delivered. It was a premature delivery and the child survived barely over a week. However, because of the tardy investigation that we are accustomed to in this country, poor samples drawn led to an inconclusive DNA report.

3. Two principal grounds have been urged on behalf of the appellant: first, that he retracted the alleged confession at the trial, but the trial court proceeded to convict him on the basis of the confession alone; and, secondly, that the alleged victim's statement did not sound true and there was confusion as to the place or places of occurrence.

4. There is no dispute that the victim was a minor. The matter came to light only after September 17, 2013, at a time when the victim was working as a maid in Nongstoin, when she experienced unbearable abdominal pain, was taken to a medical facility and gave premature birth to a girl- child. The victim's mother was informed of the victim being unwell whereupon the victim told her mother that it was her step-father who was the father of her baby daughter and that her step-father had raped her on several occasions. The first information report came to be lodged on September 24, 2013 by a brother of the victim's mother.

5. In between, after the victim informed her mother and others that she had been raped by her step-father and the father of the child that she delivered was her step-father and the time that the complaint came to be made with the police, village meetings were held in the presence of the elders of the two clans. It is the evidence that in course of such meetings, the mother of the victim announced her decision to separate from the appellant. It is also the evidence that immediately after one of the clan meetings was over, the appellant herein confessed to having raped his step- daughter on several occasions.

6. It is in such light that the confessional statement of the appellant has to be read. Such statement was made on September 25, 2013, immediately upon the appellant being arrested and it is evident from Exhibit-13, which is the record of the confession and the notings of the Executive Magistrate, that, at least on paper, both the letter and spirit of Section 164 of the Code were complied with. The appellant's statement reads as follows:

My name is Donboklang Ryntathiang, son of (Lt) Shri Dwi Nongsiej. I reside in Mawbri near Riangdo and I am a labourer by profession. I was living with Smoldaris Ryntong as husband and wife. She has one daughter from another man and five children with me. She is 14 (fourteen) years of age.

We use to play, me and the young girl, Dibialin. One day last year while playing with her I felt the urge to have intercourse with her. We were at home that time. I asked her to let me have intercourse with her. She resisted and I held her by force and rape her. After that I told her that if she told anyone, I would beat her. Since then I raped her four more times.

When she was pregnant she was in Nongstoin and the matter was known only after she had delivered. I had confessed to her relatives and I confess here too that I had raped her and that I am her baby daughter's father.

7. The victim was steadfast in her version through the three state