Conviction under POCSO Act requires reliable evidence; inconsistencies in victim's testimony, compounded by DNA evidence, render conviction unsustainable.

JUDGMENT & ORDER (CAV)

(M. Thakuria, J)

1. Heard Ms. S.S. Zia, the learned counsel for the appellant. Also heard Mr. R.R. Kaushik, the learned Additional Public Prosecutor appearing on behalf of the State respondent.

2. This is an appeal u/s 415 BNSS challenging the judgment & order dated 30.09.2024 passed by learned Special Judge, Nagaon, Assam in Special Case No. 54(N)/2021, whereby the appellant was convicted for the offence u/s 376(3) IPC read with Section 6 of the POCSO Act and thereby sentenced to undergo R.I. for 20 years and also sentenced to pay fine of Rs. 10,000/- with default stipulation.

3. The brief facts leading to the present appeal is that on 28.05.2021 the respondent no. 2 lodged an FIR before Officer In-charge of Kampur police station, alleging inter alia that her father (the appellant) brought her minor daughter/victim to his house to do the household chores due to the illness of his wife, with an assurance that he would arrange the marriage of the victim. But, during the stay of the victim at the residence of the appellant, he enticed the victim to watch porn video in his mobile and also had sexual intercourse with her and in the consequence she became pregnant. On receipt of the FIR, a case was registered being numbered as Kampur P.S. Case No. 66/2021 u/s 376(3) IPC read with Section 6 of the POCSO Act.

4. On completion of the investigation the I/O filed the charge-sheet against the accused/appellant under the same section of law. Charges were framed accordingly u/s 376(3) IPC read with Section 6 of the POCSO Act. The charges were read over and explained to the accused/appellant, to which he pleaded not guilty and claimed to be tried.

5. During trial, the prosecution examined as many as 8 nos. of witnesses including the Medical Officer (M/O) and the Investigating Officer (I/O) and exhibited 13 nos. of documents which were marked as Ext.-1 to Ext.-13. In reply the defence also examined 3 witnesses, but did not exhibit any document and the Court also examined one Dharma Kanta Boruah as CW-1 and exhibited three documents as Court exhibits. The appellant also pleaded not guilty at the time of recording his statement u/s 313 Cr.PC. On completion of the trial and hearing the arguments forwarded by learned counsels for both sides, the learned Special Judge passed the impugned judgment & order dated 30.09.2024, convicting the accused/appellant u/s 376(3) IPC read with Section 6 of POCSO Act and sentenced him to undergo Rigorous Imprisonment for 20 years along with a fine of Rs. 10,000/-, with default stipulation.

6. On being highly aggrieved and dissatisfied by the judgment and order passed by the learned Special Judge (POCSO), Nagaon the present appeal has been preferred by the accused/appellant.

7. Ms. Zia, the learned counsel for the appellant submitted that the learned Special Judge did not consider the evidence-on-record and there is no proper appreciation of evidence-on-record and thus arrived at a perverse finding convicting the accused/appellant. She further submitted that the learned Special Judge has passed the order of conviction solely on the basis of the statement made by the victim (PW-1), by ignoring all other evidence which did not corroborate the prosecution story. The PW-1 deposed in her evidence that the appellant had inappropriately touched her body and he did nothing more than that. But, on the other hand she again stated that she became pregnant which is self-contradictory and on the basis of such contradictory statemen