Madhya Pradesh High Court: Akhil Kumar Srivastava, J., dismissed the appeal under Section 14-A of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act for the release of the appellant-accused in connection with the FIR registered for offence punishable Sections 363, 366, 344, 328, 506, 376(2)(N) and 376(D) of Penal Code, 1860 and Sections 3(1)(w)(i) and 3 (2) (v) of SC/ST Act.
The instant appeal has been filed against the impugned order dated 09-06-2020 passed by the Special Judge, S.C./S.T (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, Jabalpur in B.A. No. SCATR/20260/18 whereby the court has dismissed the application filed by the appellant-accused under Section 439 of CrPC.
Counsel for the appellant, Savita Choudhary has submitted that the appellant has been falsely implicated and he has been languishing in custody since the past two years with the trial still pending. Further, it is brought to the Court’s notice that there is a delay in filing the FIR for which no reasonable explanation has been tendered from the respondent’s end. The victim is married to the appellant and to substantiate the same, an affidavit sworn by the victim has been presented.
Counsel for the respondent, Anuj Singh vehemently opposed the present appeal and prayed for its rejection on the ground that gang raPe is a crime of heinous nature and the appellant has legitimately been implicated based on the victim’s statement under Section 164 of the CrPC. which should suffice.
Upon careful perusal of the facts, circumstances and the arguments advances the Court observed that a clear case of gang rape is made out and the delay in lodging the FIR is not a sufficient ground which could compel them to discard the entire case of the prosecution. It is also not absolutely necessary that the crime be medically corroborated. The Court relied heavily on the victim’s statement recorded under Section 164 of the CrPC and other relevant materials available.
In view of the above, the appeal has been dismissed by the Court for lack of merit.[Harishchandra v. State of M.P., 2020 SCC OnLine MP 2321, decided on 16-10-2020]
Yashvardhan Shrivastav, Editorial Assistant has put this story together