The Himachal Pradesh High Court has upheld the acquittal of a man accused of rape and offences under the POCSO Act, in a judgment that turned entirely on the prosecutrix’s own testimony, which contradicted the prosecution’s case regarding her age and the circumstances of the alleged incident. A Division Bench of Justice Vivek Singh Thakur and Justice Sushil Kukreja dismissed the State’s appeal, concluding that the prosecutrix’s statement did not inspire confidence and was fraught with major contradictions.
The appeal was filed by the State of Himachal Pradesh against a judgment dated February 16, 2015, by the Special Judge, Shimla, which had acquitted Raghubir Singh of charges under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.
Background of the Case
The prosecution’s case originated from an application filed by the prosecutrix on April 13, 2014. She stated that she was approximately 17 years old and had left her studies in 2011 while in the 8th class. She alleged that in January 2014, the accused, Raghubir Singh, whose wife was from her village, was stranded there due to snowfall.
According to her initial complaint, on an unspecified day around 7:30 p.m., when she went to a field to attend to a call of nature, the accused “gagged her mouth, dragged her, and threatened to kill her in case she screamed.” She alleged that he then committed forcible sexual intercourse with her. She stated she did not disclose the incident to anyone out of fear but filed the complaint after discovering she was pregnant.
An FIR was registered, and a subsequent medical examination revealed she was carrying a pregnancy of 13 weeks and two days. A Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) was conducted on humanitarian grounds. The accused surrendered to the police on May 18, 2014. After investigation, the trial court framed charges against him.
Arguments Before the High Court
The State, represented by Senior Additional Advocate General Mr. Y.W. Chauhan, argued that the trial court had “ignored the relevant material and not appreciated the statements of the witnesses in its right perspective.” The State contended that the acquittal was based on “surmises and conjectures” and urged the High Court to set it aside.
Conversely, counsel for the respondent, Ms. Salochna Rana, argued that the trial court’s judgment was the “result of proper appreciation of the material on record.” She highlighted “major contradictions” not only among prosecution witnesses but also within the statement of the prosecutrix herself, submitting that the appeal was devoid of merit.
Court’s Analysis and Findings
The High Court, in its judgment authored by Justice Sushil Kukreja, began by reiterating the legal principle of “double presumption in favour of the accused” in an acquittal appeal. The bench then undertook a detailed scrutiny of the evidence, focusing primarily on the testimony of the prosecutrix (PW-1).
The Court noted that the prosecutrix’s testimony fundamentally undermined the prosecution’s case. While deposing in court, she made several critical statements:
- On Her Age: She categorically stated that her actual date of birth was April 13, 1994. She claimed her date of birth was “wrongly recorded by her grand-father as 13.04.1997” in both the school register and the pariwar register. This directly contradicted the prosecution’s primary evidence for invoking the POCSO Act.
- On the Incident: After being declared hostile, during cross-examination, she deposed that she herself had “called the accused in the field, where the alleged incident took place.”
- On the Complaint: She further stated that her initial application to the police “was written by the police.”
The Court observed, “the prosecutrix herself destroyed the case of the prosecution, as she questioned her age and disputed her date of birth, as recorded in the School Admission and Withdrawal register and pariwar register.”
Because the prosecutrix herself disavowed the official records of her age, the Court found that the documents presented by the prosecution—a school certificate (Ex. PW-2/B) and a copy of the pariwar register (Ex. PW-3/B)—lost their credibility. The bench also pointed out that the prosecution failed to produce foundational evidence, such as the birth register or testimony from the person who made the original entries, to substantiate the recorded date of birth.
The judgment noted the settled law that a conviction for rape can be based on the sole testimony of the prosecutrix. However, it also cited the Supreme Court’s decision in Tameezduddin alias Tammu v. State of NCT of Delhi, which held that if a prosecutrix’s story is “improbable and belies logic,” relying solely on her statement “would be doing violence to the very principles which govern the appreciation of evidence in a criminal matter.”
Applying this principle, the High Court found the prosecutrix’s testimony unreliable. The Court stated, “On a careful analysis of the testimony of the prosecutrix, we find major contradictions, inconsistencies and embellishments in the prosecution evidence, which cast a shadow of doubt and led us to find it difficult to rely upon her testimony.”
The Final Verdict
Based on her own sworn testimony, the Court accepted the prosecutrix’s date of birth as April 13, 1994, making her 20 years old at the time of the incident. This finding negated the applicability of the POCSO Act.
Furthermore, her admission that she had called the accused to the field led the court to conclude that “it would not be proper to hold the accused guilty for the alleged offence under Section 376 IPC.”
Concluding that the prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, the High Court held that the trial court’s acquittal was a result of a “proper appreciation of evidence and law” and required no interference. The State’s appeal was accordingly dismissed.
