JUDGMENT:

SANJIB BANERJEE, C.J.

The appellant has been sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for 20 years for offences punishable under Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and fined Rs.25,000/-. In default of payment of the fine, the appellant is to undergo three further months of simple imprisonment.

2. The first information report was lodged in this case at the Nongstoin Police Station in West Khasi Hills on February 12, 2020 by the mother of a 12-year-old girl and two others. According to the FIR, the survivor had been continually raped by the appellant for a substantial period of time in the year 2019 and up to January, 2020. The appellant is the maternal uncle of the survivor.

3. In her initial statement to the investigating agency recorded under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, the survivor narrated that the appellant had “sexually assaulted” her several times when she was alone at home. She recounted that the appellant “used to come to my bedroom and touch me inappropriately and inserted his penis inside my private part.” She could not indicate the exact date or month when the incident first occurred but she maintained that the appellant committed the act several times, including when she was at home or in the jungle searching for wood or fetching water. The girl narrated that in the month of January, 2020 “my uncle again committed the same act upon me inside the toilet at my grandmother’s house.” She claimed that she was too afraid to report the matter to anybody initially, but she could not bear it anymore and told her mother.

4. In her statement recorded before a Magistrate under Section 164 of the Code, the survivor described the first time that she was violated without being able to remember the exact date:

“One night around 8 pm my maternal uncle came back home... After having our dinner together I went to bed at around 9:30 pm. There I slept with my two younger sibling and one younger maternal cousin. Around midnight, I was still awake but not the other ones in the bedroom. Then I saw my maternal uncle coming into the room and without saying anything he climbed up in bed with me. He did not say anything but just took off his pants and took off my pants and penetrated me.”

5. The girl-child remembered that the experience was both “painful and scary” for her and she warned the appellant not to repeat the act but she was, nonetheless, subjected to the same suffering intermittently. She went on to add:

“I don’t remember when did it stop but it did stop after an in-house church service at my grandmother’s house was had. I informed a neighbour of what had happened and she in turn informed my mother who asked me why I didn’t tell her sooner and I replied that it was because I was scared.”

6. Following the FIR being made on February 12, 2020, the survivor was medically examined. The history of the incident was written down by the medical examiner to the effect that the survivor claimed to have been sexually assaulted many times by her maternal uncle in the year 2019, but she did not remember the dates and that the survivor reported the matter to her mother on or about February 3, 2020, but she could not remember the exact date. On the basis of the survivor’s description of the suffering that she underwent, the medical examination report recorded that she was penetrated in her vagina and anus by the appellant’s penis. The girl-child was unable to indicate whether there was any discharge of semen. The doctor did not find any recent penetration injury but reported that the hymen of the survivor was not intact.

7. The doctor was examined in course of the trial and she substantiat