Supreme Court: The 3-Judge Bench comprising of CJ Ranjan Gogoi and Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K.M. Joseph, JJ., dismissed an appeal filed by the accused-appellant for his conviction under Section 376 IPC for a sentence of 7 years.
The facts of the case as presented in the appeal are that the accused was convicted for raping a 16-year-old girl. The victim’s family was neighbors and friends with the accused’s family. The incident of rape happened in January 1996 but was discovered by the mother of prosecutrix only in May-June when the victim missed her cycle that she was 5 months pregnant.
The FIR in this regard was filed in the month of July 1996 stating that prosecutrix and her family did not want to spoil the reputation or bring disharmony in the family of the accused and later the complaint was filed only on the basis that the accused had denied providing funds for the victims’ abortion.
The Supreme Court Bench in the present case focused on the cardinal issue that has to be decided whether the initial act was consensual or a forcible act. Further, the Court stated that the close relations between the families and that being the reason for the delay in lodging an FIR cannot be brushed aside. Court also took notice of the facts that there was a solitary incident and was not followed by repeated acts which lead us to this act being non-consensual.
Therefore, the prosecution was successful in proving that it was a forcible act and not consensual which failed the present appeal by upholding the conviction and sentence of the accused-appellant. [P.J. Mathew v. State of Kerala,2018 SCC OnLine SC 2044, Order dated 04-10-2018]
