Victim's Birth Certificate Registered 17 Years After Birth Cannot Automatically Establish Minority: Sikkim HC Acquits Man In POCSO Case
The Sikkim High Court has held that a birth certificate registered years after a person's birth cannot automatically be presumed to be correct when statutory requirements under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, were not complied with. The division bench of Justice Meenakshi Madan Rai and Justice Bhaskar Raj Pradhan observed that the birth certificate was issued on April 5,...
The Sikkim High Court has held that a birth certificate registered years after a person's birth cannot automatically be presumed to be correct when statutory requirements under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, were not complied with.
The division bench of Justice Meenakshi Madan Rai and Justice Bhaskar Raj Pradhan observed that the birth certificate was issued on April 5, 2022, recording the date of birth of the victim as January 1, 2005.
The bench noted:
"Further, we notice that section 13 of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969 deals with delayed registration of births and deaths. Section 13 (3) of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969 provides that any birth or death which has not been registered within one year of its occurrence shall be registered only on an order made by a Magistrate of a First Class after verifying the correctness of the birth or death and on payment of prescribed fee. There is no evidence placed by the prosecution to suggest compliance of this provision before the Registration of Births and Deaths in the Register (exhibit-P15). Consequently, the presumption of correctness of the public document i.e. the birth certificate (exhibit-P3) cannot be made in its favour".
The case arose from an FIR lodged on August 10, 2022, after a young woman approached the Primary Health Care with complaints of vaginal bleeding, abdominal pain and weakness. Medical examination revealed that she was pregnant.
According to the prosecution, the woman disclosed that she had engaged in sexual intercourse with the accused on June 13, 2022. Investigators alleged that the accused, who was married and had a child, was in a relationship with her victim and had consensual sexual relations with her.
Following the investigation, charges were framed under the POCSO Act, and rape provisions (Section 376) and under actions done with the intention to prevent a child from being born alive or cause it to die after birth (Section 315) of the IPC.
The Trial Court later convicted the accused under the POCSO Act and for rape, holding that the victim was a minor at the date of the incident.
Aggrieved, the accused man approached the High Court challenging the impugned order. The prosecution relied on the birth certificate showing the victim's date of birth as January 5, 2005.
However, the High Court noted that the certificate was issued only on April 5, 2022, more than 17 years after the alleged date of birth. Examining the victim's testimony, the court noted that she claimed her date of birth to be April 5, 2004, claiming that her parents had reduced her age and recorded it as January 5, 2005.
Regarding the presumption of correctness of birthdate, the court noted that ordinarily the birth certificate enjoys a presumption of correctness as a public document, but such presumption could not be applied in the present case.
Referring to Section 13(3) of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, the court noted that the births registered more than one year after occurrence required an order from a First Class Magistrate after verification of the correctness of the birth and payment of the prescribed fees.
However, no evidence was produced by the prosecution to demonstrate compliance with these statutory requirements before the delayed registration was entered into the official register.
Therefore, the bench directed:
"We are thus of the view that the prosecution had unfortunately faltered in proving that the victim was in fact a child as defined under section 2(d) of the POCSO Act. Consequently, the conviction and sentence of the appellant under section 3(a) of the POCSO Act is set aside... as the sexual intercourse between them was consensual and the prosecution could not establish that the victim was a child we are unable to confirm the conviction and sentence of the appellant under section 376(1) of the IPC".
Case Title: Jeet Hang Subba v State of Sikkim, CRL. A. No. 25 of 2024
For Apellant: Senior Advocate Jorgay Namka and Advocate Mingma Lhamu Sherpa
For State: Additional Public Prosecutor Yadev Sharma