Victim Thought That She Would Find A ‘Monastery’ In Father's Lap; But He Was A ‘Monster’: Delhi HC Convicts Man Accused Of Raping Minor Daughter

The Delhi High Court convicted a man accused of raping his minor daughter who was aged 10 years at the time of incident.

The State had filed an appeal against the judgment of the Trial Court by which the accused who was charged and tried for committing aggravated penetrative sexual assault upon his daughter, was acquitted of all the charges.

A Division Bench comprising Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Manoj Jain remarked, “The wrongdoer was not any outsider or stranger. … Victim must have thought that she would find a ‘monastery’ in the lap of her father. Little did she realize that he was rather a ‘monster’. … Unfortunately, neither she nor her mother could muster enough of courage and report the incident to the police. Had they immediately rushed to the police, the victim might have been saved from perpetual trauma.”

The Bench said that merely because there were minor quarrels between the accused and his wife, the victim would not churn out a story claiming that she was being sexually assaulted for the last two years.

APP Manjeet Arya appeared for the appellant/State while Advocate Kamlesh Kr. Mishra appeared for the respondent/accused.

Brief Facts -

The accused and his wife used to work as security guards and they had two children, a daughter (victim) and a son. The victim in the year 2013, came to a police station and revealed that her father had been sexually assaulting her for quite some time. She claimed that one day, when her father was jobless, he did not let her go to school and during noon hour, when she was alone at the house with him, as her mother was away to work and her brother in school, her father made her sleep along his side. He then touched her private parts and when she resisted, he rebuked her. He then sexually assaulted her and hence, she divulged about such incident to her mother but when her mother confronted him, he scolded her mother. He even asked her as to why she had told everything to her mother.

The victim also revealed that her father had been exploiting her for last two years and sexually assaulted her lastly on January 4, 2013. The accused was thereafter arrested and sent up to face trial. He was charged for the commission of offences under Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO Act), Sections 506 and 323 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The accused pleaded innocence and claimed that he was falsely implicated as there was discord between him and his wife. He stated that his wife had projected their daughter as victim and had come up with false allegation that he had raped her. He, however, did not lead any evidence in defence. The Trial Court after examining witnesses and considering the evidence, acquitted the accused. Hence, the State approached the High Court.

The High Court in view of the facts and circumstances of the case observed, “On careful perusal of the entire record, we are thus persuaded to hold that the testimony of victim inspires full confidence and there is no reason whatsoever to suspect or distrust her. … It seems that learned Trial Court got swayed because of delay in reporting the matter. Learned Trial Court also gave unwarranted weightage to the contradictions, which were superficial in nature.”

The Court noted that the substance of the testimony of all the three witnesses appears to have ‘ring of truth’ as they all have corroborated one another.

“We also do not find any reason to hold that it was a motivated or planted case. … We are conscious of the fact that these are appeals against acquittal and the basic principle of presumption of innocence gets further strengthened by the fact of acquittal by the Trial Court and, therefore, such acquittal should not be disturbed if two views are possible. However, if on reassessment of evidence, the Appellate Court comes to the conclusion that guilt of the accused is established and such conclusion is the only inevitable conclusion, then mere fact that appeal is against acquittal would be immaterial”, it said.

Furthermore, the Court said that the Trial Court misread and misinterpreted the evidence and the analysis of the evidence is based on conjectured inferences, necessitating the court to interfere with such order of acquittal.

Accordingly, the High Court allowed the appeal and held the accused guilty.

Cause Title- State v. P.D.D. (Neutral Citation: 2024:DHC:3904-DB)

Appearance:

Appellant: APP Manjeet Arya, SI Yamini Vats and PS Patel Nagar.

Respondent: Advocates Kamlesh Kr. Mishra, Dipak Raj, Bibhuti Bhushan Mishra, Kailash Kr. Jha, Anubhav Gupta, Ravi Ranjan Mishra, Aditya, Shweta Priya, Anish Raj, Deep Raj, Renu, Shivani Verma, Samishti Solomons, Nitin Kr. Nayak, and Tripti Jugal.

Click here to read/download the Judgment