IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of Decision: September 22, 2025 Tejinderpal Singh .....Appellant Versus State of Punjab ......Respondent CORAM: HON'BLE MRS. JUSTICE LISA GILL HON'BLE MRS. JUSTICE RAMESH KUMARI Present: Mr. Saurabh Arora, Advocate for the appellant.

Mr. Raghav Garg, Assistant Advocate General, Punjab.

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RAMESH KUMARI J.

1. Present appeal has been preferred by appellant-accused (hereinafter referred as ‘accused’) against judgment and order dated 06.01.2016 whereby he has been convicted and sentenced by learned Additional Sessions Judge, Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar Mohali, in case FIR No.24, dated 24.02.2015 registered under Sections 302, 363, 376-A IPC and Sections 4, 5 and 6 of The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (hereinafter referred to as ‘POCSO Act’) at Police Station City Kharar, as under:-

Section RI Fine In default

363 IPC For 7 years Rs.2,000/- RI for one year

376-A Life Imprisonment - - 6 of POCSO Act Life imprisonment Rs.10,000/- -

All the substantive sentences were ordered to run concurrently.

This appeal is filed by the accused under Section 374(2) Cr.P.C.

(corresponding Section 415 of BNSS) against the judgment of conviction and order of sentence above referred.

FACTS AS PER PROSECUTION VERSION

2. FIR No.24 was registered on 24.02.2015 upon the statement, PW- 2/A of PW-2 YK (name withheld to conceal the identity of minor victim and hereinafter referred as ‘complainant’) recorded before PW7-ASI Amar Nath on the same date, wherein he stated that he is running grocery shop in X in City XX. He has a daughter ‘N’ (name withheld to conceal the identity of minor victim), who is aged about 8 ½ years, who was studying at XX Model High School XX. She was playing in front of his house in the street on 23.02.2015. At about 8:00 p.m., he came outside his house in the street and noticed that his daughter was missing. He searched for his daughter but she could not be found. He was certain that his daughter had been kidnapped by unknown persons, thus he sought action to be taken against unknown persons and his daughter to be traced.

3. PW-7 ASI Amar Nath made endorsement PW-7/A on statement PW- 2/A and sent ruqa to the police station and FIR PW-7/B was registered by MHC and he also made endorsement PW-7/C on ruqa.

4 (i). On 03.03.2015, PW-2 complainant came to know about the death of his daughter ‘N’. Dead body of his daughter was recovered from the bushes near the shops of Mohalla XXX. He was going to inform the police, when he met SHO Vijay Kumar PW-13 and informed about this fact. Dead body of ‘N’ was recovered from XXX Mohalla City XX. The child was strangulated with her pyjami. Complainant PW-2 identified dead body of the child. His statement and statement of Rajesh Kumar regarding identity of dead body were recorded vide PW-13/A and PW-13/B respectively. PW-13 Vijay Kumar also found one button of a shirt lying near the dead body having mark “Lacoste’ and it was converted into parcel and sealed by him and taken in police possession vide recovery memo Ex.PW7/E. Photographer Satish Kumar PW-6 was on the spot, who took the photographs Ex.PW6/A. Rough site plan PW-7/E of the place of recovery of dead body was prepared. Inquest report PW-2/B of dead body was also prepared. Dead body was handed over to PW-7 ASI Amar Nath for postmortem with application Ex.PW-8/A. Postmortem of deceased ‘N’ was got conducted from PW8-Dr. Bobby Gulati. After postmortem, dead body was handed over to PW-2- complainant. Offence under Sections 302, 376 and 6 of POCSO Act were added after consultation with Doctor.

(ii) On 04.03.2015, PW-13, Inspector Vijay Kumar along with PW-7 Amar Nath and other officials of the police party were going to city XX and when they reached near UCO Bank XX, PW5-Lakhwinder Singh met them. PW-13 Inspector Vijay Kumar disclosed the matter to him and he suffered a statement. On the basis of his statement, accused was nominated in this case by PW-13 Inspector Vijay Kumar.

(iii) PW