22 years later, Delhi High Court convicts 2 for raping 13-year-old.

Source – indialegallive.com

Delhi High Court has convicted two men for raping a 13 year old girl, over two decades after the incident. Setting aside trial court’s order the Delhi High Court convicted them for raping a minor girl and abetting the crime respectively. Court found the medical evidence corroborated the victim’s testimony.

A trail court order had acquitted the two of all the charges. Delhi High Court has observed that the acquittal suffered from the vice of perversity, resulting in a grave miscarriage of justice.

Before the trial court the 13-year-old girl, had testified the entire sequence of events and the torture she was subjected to by the accused at the time of the incident in March, 1997.

A bench consisting of justices Siddharth Mridul and IS Mehta said while passing the verdict, “Having regard to the totality of the circumstances, appearing on the record of the case, we are constrained to observe that the trial court ignored the cardinal tenets of appreciation of evidence, including the weight to be attached to the testimony of the minor victim, since the accused had evidently been identified immediately and arrested contemporaneously.”

The bench observed that the medical evidence corroborated the testimony of the minor survivor. The survivor had also identified the two men as the offenders before the trial court.

The Delhi High Court allowed the appeal of the prosecution challenging the trial court’s order and directed that convicts Surender Kumar and Ravinder be taken into custody.

High Court has convicted Surender for the offences of rape and criminal intimidation while holding Ravinder guilty of abetment to rape.

The incident had taken place on March 27, 1997, when the victim and her younger brother had gone out to ease themselves. Ravinder caught hold of the minor boy while Surender forcibly picked up the girl and took her to a vacant place.

He then raped her and threatened her of dire consequences when she tried to raise an alarm. He fled the spot immediately after raping the minor. When the minor girl’s father started searching for her, he found her lying in that place.

The minor’s father informed the police and an FIR was registered under relevant sections in Delhi’s Alipur police station here.

The two men claimed before the court that they were falsely implicated in the case.  The motive behind the case was to extract money.

“The impugned judgment (of the trial court) is thus, a total negation in the quest for search of truth and overlooks the cardinal principle that the duty of a judge presiding over a criminal trial is not merely to see that no innocent person is punished but also to see that the guilty person does not escape and that both the public duties are equally important,” read the court verdict.

The High Court observed that minor contradictions were misappropriated by the trail court and were inconsequential as far the case was concerned.

The High Court will pronounce the judgement on the quantum of punishment  in a week’s time.