Credibility of the victim's testimony is crucial in sexual offence cases; inconsistencies and contradictions can render it unreliable, necessitating corroborative evidence for conviction.

JUDGMENT

Instant criminal appeal filed under Section 374 of the Criminal Procedure Code , 1973, lays challenge to Judgment of conviction and order of sentence dated 20.05.2019, passed by learned Sessions Judge, Hamirpur, H.P. in Sessions Trial No. 72 of 2018, titled as State of Himachal Pradesh Vs. Anand Gopal, whereby the appellant (hereinafter referred to as ‘’accused”), was convicted and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of 10 years and to pay a fine of Rs.50,000/- and in default of payment of fine, to undergo simple imprisonment for a period of 6 months for the commission of offence punishable under Section 376 of Indian Penal Code (IPC). He was further sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment for a period of one year and to pay a fine of Rs.10,000/- and in default of payment of fine, to undergo simple imprisonment for a period of 3 months for the commission of offence punishable under Section 506 of IPC and out of the fine so realized, an amount of Rs.40,000/- be paid as compensation to the victim.

2. Brief facts of the case are that the husband of the prosecutrix is running a jewellery shop and they are having two sons. The accused used to perform Satsang in the area where the prosecutrix was residing. The prosecutrix had seen the accused in the house of her friend when he was performing Satsang about 2-3 years prior to the incident. The accused told the prosecutrix that he wanted to perform Satsang in her house, however, she told him that she had to talk to her husband about this. On this, the accused asked her to bring her husband and when she brought him in the evening, many people had gathered in the house of her friend, where the accused was performing Satsang. The accused asked the husband of the prosecutrix that he would perform Satsang in his house, to which her husband agreed. The accused had performed first Satsang in their house on July, 2016 and thereafter performed second Satsang in their house in the year 2017. The prosecutrix and her husband used to treat the accused equivalent to God and had faith upon him. The accused had visited the house of one Ranjit Singh, living in village of prosecutrix to perform Satsang on 10.06.2018 and thereafter visited the house of prosecutrix on 11.06.2018 at 9.30 A.M. with an intention to stay there for 2-3 days. At that time the husband of the prosecutrix had gone to his shop and their son was sleeping. She asked the accused to sit in the drawing room, but he told her that he would like to take her test and when prosecutrix replied in affirmative, accused inquired whether there were any CCTV cameras in the house, on which, she replied in negative. Thereafter, accused asked the prosecutrix to accompany him to the ground floor for taking her test where he put his hand on her head, slapped her and also told her that she should not get scared as God himself was going to bestow in her person. Accused also caught hold of her arm, upon which, she was confused and could not understand as to what kind of test was to be taken. The prosecutrix was told by the accused to remain silent during the test by saying that otherwise, there would be a catastrophe and her house would be ruined and thereafter he pushed her on the bed and raped her. She was also told not to reveal this incident to any person, otherwise, she would become a pauper. After this incident, the prosecutrix got mentally upset and fell into depression, as a consequence of which, she was unable to tell this incident to any person due to the threat of catastrophe. She also lost her appetite, upon whi