{"id":1148,"date":"2023-11-29T09:16:10","date_gmt":"2023-11-29T03:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/?p=1148"},"modified":"2023-11-29T09:16:30","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T03:46:30","slug":"supreme-court-reiterates-that-conviction-can-be-made-on-the-basis-of-the-sole-testimony-of-the-prosecutrix-in-a-rape-case-but-the-courts-also-have-to-be-extremely-careful-while-examining-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/supreme-court-reiterates-that-conviction-can-be-made-on-the-basis-of-the-sole-testimony-of-the-prosecutrix-in-a-rape-case-but-the-courts-also-have-to-be-extremely-careful-while-examining-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme court reiterates that conviction can be made on the basis of the sole testimony of the prosecutrix in a rape case but the courts also have to be extremely careful while examining it"},"content":{"rendered":"

MANAK CHAND @ MANI\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong>(APPELLANT) Vs.\u00a0 <\/strong>THE STATE OF HARYANA\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong>(RESPONDENT)<\/p>\n

(CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.2276 OF 2014)<\/p>\n

(3JB, SK KAUL, C.T. RAVIKUMAR and SUDHANSHU DHULIA JJ., delivered by SUDHANSHU DHULIA, J.<\/strong>)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Facts:<\/u><\/strong> The appellant before the Court has been convicted under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code and has been sentenced for seven years of R.I. and Rs.1000\/- as fine, with default stipulations. The order of the Trial Court dated 03.09.2001 has been upheld by the High Court of Punjab and Haryana as per judgment dated 19.02.2014 in appeal.<\/p>\n

Issue:<\/u><\/strong> Whether the accused is guilty of the offence of rape committed under section 376 IPC?<\/p>\n

Arguments on behalf of counsel for appellant:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

The prosecution\u2019s case is that the prosecutrix was a minor on the date of the incident. In order to prove this the prosecution relied upon the date of birth of the prosecutrix recorded as 04.04.1987 in the school register. PW-5 i.e., the prosecutrix in her examination-in-chief before the Trial Court on 17.04.2001 states that she had gone to live with her sister, when a request was made by her \u201cJija\u201d (Brotherin-law) to send her to their house for help. On 12.09.2000, when her sister was away from the house and the prosecutrix was alone, the appellant came to her room and closed the door from inside, showed a knife to her and threatened to kill her if she did not succumb to his carnal desires; and then raped her. She further states that after that incident, the appellant committed the same act on the prosecutrix on two or three different occasions. She then returns to her maternal house and tells her mother Sita Devi\/Sito Bai about the incident, which is admittedly after more than a month from the incident of rape. Her father Gian Chand (PW-6), also supported her version. He states that on receiving this information he visited the house of 4 his son-in-law Pappu and narrated the entire incident to him, as narrated to him by his daughter. He then gave a proposal before the parents of the appellant for marriage of the prosecutrix with the appellant Manak Chand @ Mani, but as no positive reply was given to him, he lodged the FIR on 23.10.2000<\/p>\n

Held:<\/u><\/strong> The court allowed the present appeal, set aside the order dated 19.02.2014 of the High Court and the order dated 03.09.2001 of the Trial Court, and acquitted the accused of the charges of Section 376 IPC and held that, \u201cunder these facts, and on the weight of the evidence placed before the Trial Court, we are of the considered opinion that as regarding the age of the prosecutrix, no definite conclusion could have been made. The prosecution has not successfully proved that the prosecutrix was less than sixteen years of age at the time of the alleged commission of the crime, and therefore the benefit ought to 16 have been given to the appellant. Secondly, as to the factum of rape itself, we are not convinced that an offence of rape is made out in this case as it does not meet the ingredients of Rape as defined under Section 375 of the IPC, as we do not find any evidence which may suggest that the appellant, even though had sexual intercourse with the prosecutrix, it was against her will or without her consent.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANAK CHAND @ MANI\u00a0 \u00a0(APPELLANT) Vs.\u00a0 THE STATE OF HARYANA\u00a0 \u00a0(RESPONDENT) (CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.2276 OF 2014) (3JB, SK KAUL, C.T. RAVIKUMAR and SUDHANSHU DHULIA JJ., delivered by SUDHANSHU DHULIA, J.)   Facts: The appellant before the Court has been convicted under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code and has been sentenced for seven years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judgement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1151,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions\/1151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xpertslegal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}