The Supreme Court has set aside the rape conviction of four individuals in a gang rape case, raising doubts on the sole testimony of the prosecutrix.
A bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and Prasanna B. Varale heard an appeal against the Uttarakhand High Court's decision, which upheld the appellant's conviction for committing a rape and intimidating the victim-prosecutrix.
In 2000, the trial court convicted all four accused and sentenced them to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment along with fines. The conviction was upheld by the Uttarakhand High Court in 2012.
Two of the accused died during the pendency of the appeal before the apex court.
According to the prosecution, the victim submitted a written complaint on July 31, 1998 to the Senior Superintendent of Police in Dehradun regarding an incident that allegedly took place on April 7, 1998. In her complaint, she stated that around 7:30 pm, while she was returning home from the market in Sanjay Colony, four men - Rajendra, Pappu alias Hanuman, Sushil Kumar and Kishan - intercepted her.
The woman alleged that the accused gagged her and covered her eyes with a black handkerchief before forcibly taking her to a nearby plot. There, she claimed, the men raped her one after another.
She further stated that she was unable to report the incident earlier because the accused had allegedly threatened her with serious consequences if she disclosed what had happened.
Against the conviction, before the Supreme Court, the defence argued that the complainant-prosecutrix lodged the complaint with the police only after three months of the alleged incident and did not disclose it to any of her family members because of shame, instead claiming to have narrated it to an unknown woman whose identity she herself could not recall, thereby preventing the defence from examining that woman as a witness.
Further, the Appellants also pointed out inconsistencies between the prosecutrix's statements recorded at different stages of the proceedings. For instance, the prosecutrix stated in one version that the incident took place in a room, whereas in another she claimed it occurred in a plot. There were also contradictions regarding the location of the place of occurrence and other surrounding circumstances.
The defence also highlighted that the alleged incident occurred near a densely populated area, yet no independent witnesses were produced. They further argued that there was prior enmity between the parties due to a dispute over water supply, which could have led to false implication.
Setting aside the High Court's decision of conviction, the judgment authored by Justice Varale found the prosecutrix's conduct to be unnatural, where she had disclosed the alleged incident to an unknown outsider rather than a family member.
“the prosecutrix did not disclose the incident to anybody, neither friends nor family and not even her husband out of shame and ignorance as mentioned in the complaint. This version of the prosecutrix is against a natural conduct of the person. It would have been natural for the prosecutrix to disclose the incident to her family members after some time and not to somebody who is unknown to her and as such it is very difficult to accept the version of the prosecutrix.”, the court observed.
“It is the trite in law that the conviction can rest on the solitary version of the prosecutrix, provided it inspires confidence of the Court. In the present case, the version of the prosecutrix utterly fails to inspire confidence of this Court.”, added the court, pointing out that in the absence of corroborative evidence, the Court found difficult to accept the sole testimony of the prosecutrix, given that the complaint was registered by her after almost three months of an alleged incident.
The Court relied on Vijayan v. State of Kerala (2008) 14 SCC 763, where the prosecution's case rested solely on the testimony of the prosecutrix, there was a delay of seven months in lodging the FIR, and the absence of corroborative evidence ultimately led to the acquittal of the accused.
“In cases where the sole testimony of the prosecutrix is available, it is very dangerous to convict the accused, specially when the prosecutrix could venture to wait for seven months for filing the FIR for rape. This leaves the accused totally defenceless. Had the prosecutrix lodged the complaint soon after the incident, there would have been some supporting evidence like the medical report or any other injury on the body of the prosecutrix so as to show the sign of rape. If the prosecutrix has willingly submitted herself to sexual intercourse and waited for seven months for filing the FIR it will be very hazardous to convict on such sole oral testimony.”, the court quoted the observation made in Vijayan (supra).
“…here is no medical evidence, or any other evidence on record to prove that the accused persons committed the grave act. The ratio in the case of Vijayan (supra) squarely covers the case at hand. We, therefore, do not find any reason whatsoever to hold that the appellants committed the heinous act. The material on record does not clearly establish the guilt of the accused person and the prosecution has not proved its case beyond reasonable doubt. We therefore allow the present appeal and set aside the judgment and order of the High Court.”, the court held.
Accordingly, the appeal was allowed.
Cause Title: RAJENDRA & ORS VERSUS STATE OF UTTARAKHAND
Citation : 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 243
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Appearance:
For Appellant(s) Ms. Sonia Mathur, Sr. Adv. (argued by) Dr. Sandeep Singh, Adv. Ms. Shubhi Bhardwaj, Adv. Mr. Vikrant Rana, Adv. Mr. Vinay Pal, Adv. Mr. Prashant Malik, Av. Mr. Kushagra Sachdeva, Adv. Mr. Arham Khan, Adv. Ms. Seema Singh, Adv. Mr. Ashutosh Rai Sharma, Adv. Mr. Kisalaya Shukla, Adv. Ms. Vanshika Mudgil, Adv. Manasi Sridhar, Adv. Safeena Khan, Adv. Mr. Nikhil Chandra Jaiswal, Adv. Mr. Sanchit Garga, AOR
For Respondent(s) Ms. Saakshi Singh Rawat, Adv. (argued by) Ms. Rachna Gandhi, Adv. Mr. Sudarshan Singh Rawat, AOR