Unsafe To Rely On Solitary Testimony Of Victim: Punjab & Haryana High Court Acquits Men Accused Of Committing Gang Rape

The Punjab & Haryana High Court has upheld the acquittal of persons accused of committing gang rape, observing that the testimony of the prosecution is not sufficient to convict in the absence of corroboratory evidence.

A division bench of Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Justice Lalit Batra said, "we are of the opinion that the learned Trial Court while appreciating the entire evidence in its right perspective, has rightly held that owing to all the reasons, it is unsafe for the Court to rely upon the solitary testimony of victim without any corroboration which does not exist on record and therefore, prosecution remained unsuccessful to prove allegations against accused persons."

The Court was hearing an appeal filed by the alleged victim of the gang rape, against the order of the Trial Court wherein two accused were acquitted of the charge under Section 376-D IPC, whereas one was acquitted of the charge under Section 354-A IPC in FIR lodged in 2020 in Haryana's Panipat.

As per the prosecution's version, the prosecutrix was raped by two men who later threatened to kill her in case she made any complaint to anyone.

It was alleged that when she approached police along with her husband, they took her signatures in blank paper. Thereafter, she was pressurized to compromise the matter and when she made an effort to approach higher police officers, she was threatened by the accused that they would viral her video to malign her reputation, it added.

Thereafter on the basis of the complaint, an FIR was registered under Section 354-A IPC and after the investigation Section 376-D IPC was added.

The Trial Court acquitted the accused persons observing that the prosecution has miserably failed to substantiate its allegations against the accused.

After hearing the submissions, the Court noted that "after reading the statement of victim/prosecutrix, she cannot be characterized as sterling witness because her version is contradictory to other evidence on record."

"Testimony of victim is not sufficient to prove the accusation and demands corroboration from an independent source which is not available," the Court added.

Contradiction In Prosecutorix's Statement

The bench also considered the contradictions in the statement of the prosecutrix given in the complaint and during the investigation.

"During cross-examination of victim , photographs were pressed into service by accused. victim when confronted with photographs...stated that though she identifies herself in those photographs, but she cannot identify accused Deepak in the said photographs. She categorically stated that she never talked to accused Deepak on phone. However, during her cross- examination, she categorically stated that accused Deepak belongs to another village and he was on visiting terms with her nephew...and as such she knew him by name," the Court noted.

Considerable Gap In Medico-Legal Report And Incident

Furthermore, the Court noted that there is a "considerable gap" in the medico-legal examination of the victim and the alleged incident.

"Though the alleged occurrence took place on 22.07.2020, however, victim was medico-legally examined on 18.09.2020 and as such after considerable gap of period of about two months, possibility of detection of any injury on her person on account of alleged sexual assault did not arise at all," the Court said.

The Court also highlighted that to support the allegation of the victim that she was injured during the alleged incident, no medical report was submitted to the Police.

"In this view of the matter, once victim did not make available the medical record, in terms of which, she was treated of injuries sustained by her during the course of alleged occurrence, this circumstance leads to clear inference that no such injury was ever sustained by her and, thus, prosecution version appears to be doubtful," the Court opined.

Negative DNA Report

"FSL Report...has come in negative as DNA profile of seminal stains on source (slides) and source of swab of victim is not matching with the DNA profile of blood sample of accused..." the Court noted.

In light of the above, the bench opined that "the learned Trial Court while appreciating the entire evidence in its right perspective, has rightly held that owing to all the reasons, it is unsafe for the Court to rely upon the solitary testimony of victim without any corroboration which does not exist on record and therefore, prosecution remained unsuccessful to prove allegations against accused persons."

Consequently, the plea was dismissed.

Title: XXX v. XXX

Raghav Sharma, Advocate for the appellant.

P.P. Chahar, Senior Deputy Advocate General, Haryana.