In the absence of concrete documentary evidence or statutory birth certificates as per Section 94 of the JJ Act, a court cannot rely on school or auxiliary registers to determine minority, and failure to raise alarm during alleged abduction suggests voluntary consent.

C A V Judgment

1. Since both the appeals arise out of common judgment of conviction and order of sentence, as such the same have been clubbed together, heard together and are being decided by a common order.

2. The present appeals are directed against the judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 24.09.2013 passed by the learned Upper Session Judge, Bemetara, Civil District Durg, Revenue District Bemetara (C.G.) in ST No.66/2012, whereby the appellant Nanda @ Lokesh has been convicted under Sections 363/34, 366/34 & 376 of IPC and sentenced to undergo RI for 1 year, RI for 2 years and RI for 7 years with default stipulations, whereas the appellants Shekhar Bharti and Lalu @ Sanjay have been convicted under Sections 363/34 & 366/34 of IPC and sentenced to undergo RI for 1 year & RI for 2 years, respectively, with default stipulations.

3. The prosecution case, in brief, is that on 09.07.2012 when the prosecutrix had gone for nature’s call along with her friend, the accused persons forcefully took her on motorcycle to Raipur, where the accused Nanda stayed in aunt’s house along with the prosecutrix and committed forcible sexual intercourse with her. On the next day, he left her near Bajrangbali Temple and ran away. The prosecutrix with the help of coconut selling vendor reached to her house, where she narrated the entire incident to her parents. Thereafter a case was registered against the accused persons at the police station concerned. After investigation, the charge sheet was filed before the concerned Magistrate and on the basis of the evidence adduced by the prosecution and material available on record, learned trial court convicted and sentenced the accused/appellants, as mentioned in para 2 of the judgment.

4. Learned counsel for the appellants submits that the judgment passed by the learned Trial Court is contrary to law and material available on record. There are material omissions and contradictions in the statements of the prosecution witnesses. The prosecutrix and the appellant Nanda were in relationship as such she went with the accused persons voluntarily and she did not raise any alarm or did not ask for any help while going with the accused persons and on the way also some policemen met them then also she did not tell anything to them. The father of the prosecutrix (PW-3) himself admitted that there is previous enmity between them and just to escape from the complaint made by the accused Nanda against him, a false report was lodged against the accused persons. The learned Trial Court has also wrongly held that the prosecutrix was minor on the date of incident, whereas no prudent evidence or any documentary evidence was produced by the prosecution in this regard that she was minor on the date of incident. The learned Trial Court has not considered the above said aspects of the matter and has wrongly convicted and sentenced the appellant for the aforesaid offence. Therefore, the appeals deserve to be allowed. Reliance has been placed on the judgments rendered by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the matters of Ravindra Kumar Vaishnav vs State of Chhattisgarh, reported in 2024 SCC Online Chh 260, Tilku @ Tilak Singh vs State of Uttarakhand, reported in 2025 SCC Online SC 353 and this Court’s judgment dated 13.01.2026 passed in CRA No.396/2007 in between Onkar Singh vs State of Chhattisgarh.

5. Per contra, learned State