IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI % Judgment reserved on: 11.12.2025 Judgment pronounced on: 16.03.2026 + CRL.A. 1436/2025 & CRL.M.(BAIL) 2101/2025 MOHD. MUJAHID .....Appellant versus THE STATE (GOVT. OF NCT) DELHI & ANR. ..... Respondents Advocates who appeared in this case:

For the Appellant : Mr. Adit S. Pujari, Adv. (DHCSLC) with Mr. Manvender Singh Shekhawat and Mr.

Harshwardhan Puskin Sharma, Advs.

For the Respondent : Mr. Sunil Kumar Gautam, APP for the State with Insp. Satbir Singh, PS Jaitpur CORAM HON’BLE MR JUSTICE AMIT MAHAJAN

JUDGMENT

CRL.A. 1436/2025

1. The present appeal is filed challenging the judgment dated 23.07.2025 (hereafter ‘impugned judgment’) and order on sentence dated 31.07.2025 (hereafter ‘impugned order on sentence’), passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge (‘ASJ’), Saket Courts, Delhi in Sessions Case No. 352/2019 arising out of FIR No. 111/2019 (‘FIR’), registered at Police Station Jaitpur.

2. By the impugned judgment, the learned ASJ convicted the appellant for the offences under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’) and Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (‘POCSO Act’).

3. By the impugned order on sentence, the appellant was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of 15 years for the offence under Section 6 of the POCSO Act, and to pay a fine of ₹20,000/-, and in default of payment of fine, to undergo simple imprisonment for a period of two months. Further, for the offence under Section 377 of the IPC, the appellant was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of 10 years, and to pay a fine of ₹10,000/-, and in default of payment of fine, to undergo simple imprisonment for a period of one month.

4. The brief facts of the case are as follows:

a. On 05.06.2019, the FIR was registered at Police Station Jait Pur for offences under Section 377 of the IPC and Section 6 of the POCSO Act on the basis of the statement of the victim, who was around 11 years old at that time. It is the case of the prosecution that the appellant was the victim’s neighbour. Allegedly, on the said date, at around 2PM in the afternoon, when the victim had gone to the toilet outside his room, the appellant enticed the victim to come to his room with a promise to show a movie on his mobile. When the victim went to the house of the appellant, he allegedly took off the victim’s pants as well as his own pants and sodomised the victim by inserting his penis into the anus of the victim. The victim screamed loudly and started crying, whereafter, his brother T came to the spot. On returning home, the victim told his mother about the entire incident. In the meantime, the appellant ran away from the spot.

b. In his statement under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (‘CrPC’), the victim supported the case of the prosecution. During recording of his evidence, the victim turned hostile and asserted that he had named the appellant as the culprit out of nervousness.

c. By the impugned judgment, the learned Trial Court convicted the appellant after finding that the prosecution had reasonably proved its case and the appellant had been unable to rebut the statutory presumptions under POCSO Act. It was observed that even though the victim had not identified the appellant as the culprit and asserted that he had not seen the offender, however, the presence of semen of the appellant on the recovered pant of the victim proved that the appellant had committed penetrative sexual assault with the victim. It was further observed that the evidence of the victim’s father (PW2) as well as that of the doctor who seized the pant of the victim (PW5) evidenced that the pant in question belonged to the victim.

Consequently, the appellant was sentenced by way of the impugned order on sentence.

d. Aggrieved by the same, the appellant filed the present appeal.

e. On 17.11.2025, the Investigating Officer informed this Court that the victim could not be contacted, wher