'Fictitious Evidence': Rajasthan Court Acquits Suspended Judicial Officer, His Clerks In Minor Boy Sexual Assault Case

A special POCSO Court in Rajasthan's Bharatpur district last week acquitted suspended judicial officer Jitendra Singh Guliya and his two clerks in connection with a case lodged against them on the allegations of repeatedly sodomising, sexually assaulting a minor boy and also threatening his family members of implicating them in false cases. While acquitting them, Special Judge Akhilesh Kumar categorically factored in the delay in filing the FIR despite containing serious allegations and the fictitious nature of the evidence produced by the prosecution in the case, making the case untrustworthy. The Court also took into account the discrepancies in the victim's and her mother's testimonies regarding the dates and times of the alleged act of sodomy and the fact that the mother/complaint had denied the fact regarding witnessing the alleged act from her own eyes. In brief, it was the case of the prosecution that the Judge had been molesting the child for the past one and a half months by intimidating him, and when this whole matter came to light on October 31, 2021, the mother/complainant decided to go to the police to lodge an FIR in this case. In the FIR, the mother claimed that the judge met her son at a tennis court and, after befriending him, would lure him to his house. There, the judge allegedly mixed intoxicants into alcohol or juice, and when the son became faint, the judge would sodomise him and subject him to oral sex. His clerks (stenographer Anshul Soni and a staff member of the anti-corruption court, Rahul Katara) committed the same acts. The FIR also alleged that the accused judge threatened the son, warning him that if he told anyone about the incidents, he would ensure that the son's elder brother was sent to jail. In its 79-page order, the Special Judge observed that both the complainant and her son, in their respective statements, alleged that the accused judge made the son drink alcohol, mixing it with juice; however, the evidence provided by both witnesses did not specify what was mixed in the juice. The Court noted that it was unlikely that the child would return home after drinking alcohol without their family members noticing. The Court also considered that during her cross-examination, the complainant contradicted her previous statement, denying having witnessed the accused-Judge sodomising the victim, either at his residence or elsewhere. In its Judgment, the Court also referred to the following loopholes in the prosecution's case: The Accused Stenographer (Anshul Soni) submitted an application to have his polygraph test done during the trial to prove his credibility, but the application was rejected; the court said that this fact showed that Soni was not lying.The victim child had stated that he had watched obscene videos on the judge's mobile phone, whereas the IO had denied the fact of seizing any such obscene video.The victim child had revealed the fact of Accused-Judge having oral and anal sex; however, the medical witnesses denied injuries on the internal and external genitals of the victim child and the fact of recent rape.The victim stated that the accused-Judge made him drink alcohol, while the victim's brother denied in his statement that the victim came home inebriated.The victim claimed that Accused-Soni raped him at the judge's house, but according to tower location data, Soni was not present at the Judge's residence at the time of the incident.The victim's brother not only denied that his brother had informed him about the rape incident but also stated that he had not seen with his own eyes the victim being taken to or dropped off by the accused-Judge.The majority of the witnesses have been declared hostile. The Court also highlighted that the IO had denied the fact of examining the alleged video with the assistance of a cyber expert, despite the fact that he should have had the disputed video reviewed by a cyber expert and attached the report to the case file. The Court noted that the IO had also clearly denied preparing a transcript of the conversations, although it was his responsibility to prepare the transcript and personally review the WhatsApp messages to investigate the case; however, he did not do the same. “It is not reasonable to expect senior police officers, who conducted the investigation, to rely solely on the evidence collected by the complainant in such a highly controversial case involving a senior judge. They should have conducted an independent investigation,” the Court remarked. Against this backdrop, the court concluded that the prosecution had not been able to prove the case against the accused under Section 377, read with Sections 34 and 506 IPC and Sections 5l/6 and 5c/6 of POCSO Act. Regarding the compensation to the victim child, the Court noted that since the testimony of the child victim had not been found credible...

'Fictitious Evidence': Rajasthan Court Acquits Suspended Judicial Officer, His Clerks In Minor Boy Sexual Assault Case

Sparsh Upadhyay

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