Madras HC quashes 10-years RI to alleged sexual assaulter of minor girl

Chennai: Holding that the prosecution has failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubts, the Madras high court has set aside an order of a trial court in Namakkal, convicting and sentencing an accused to 10 years RI in a case relating to alleged sexual assault on a minor girl.

Allowing an appeal from Sabari alias Sabarinathan alias Sabarivasan, Justice V.Parthiban said, “On the whole, the conclusion by the trial court is totally flawed and the findings of the trial court are unsustainable and cannot be countenanced both in law and on facts. In view of the above, this court holds that the prosecution has failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubts and therefore, the appellant is entitled for acquittal”.

The prosecution case was that when the victim minor girl was staying with her grandparents, on June 28, 2014, the accused kidnapped her and took her various places and committed aggravated penetrative assault on her.

On a complaint from her grand father, a case was registered under the Pocso Act and the trial court in Namkkal convicted and sentenced the accused to 10 years RI. Aggrieved, he filed the present appeal.

The judge said the victim girl herself has become hostile completely and not supported the case of the prosecution and nothing could be elicited from her even remotely, in order to implicate the appellant with the offences he was charged with. The evidence of grandparents and parents of the victim girl in this case does not unequivocally point to the guilt of the appellant, since there was no direct evidence given by any of them as having seen the accused and the victim girl together. It was only a case of presumption on the part of the relatives of the victim girl that the accused could have kidnapped her and could have committed sexual assault on her, the judge added.

The judge said the clear deposition of the victim girl that except knowing the accused being a student of the same school she had no other relationship with him and the accused had not kidnapped her, cannot be fully brushed aside. Even the doctors evidence was not clear in regard to the sexual assault alleged to have been committed on the victim girl, by the accused.

The doctor merely had opined that there was likelihood of the victim girl having sexual intercourse. Such opinion by itself cannot be the basis for coming to any conclusion one way or other by the trial court, the judge added.