New Delhi, Sep 25 Immorality of an act alone, without credible evidence, cannot justify conviction, the Supreme Court said on Friday while acquitting a man who was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment in a rape case.
Terming the version of the alleged victim as “not believable at all”, a bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S Chandurkar said there cannot be part acceptance and part rejection of her statement.
The bench delivered the judgment on an appeal filed by the man challenging a September 2013 verdict of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which upheld his conviction and the sentence passed by a trial court in Ludhiana in June 2012.
The trial court, while acquitting him of the charge under Section 366 of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code (IPC), had convicted him of rape under Section 376 IPC.
Section 366 of the IPC dealt with kidnapping, abducting or inducing a woman to compel her marriage, etc.
While dealing with the appeal, the apex court noted that the trial court was “completely wrong” in justifying conviction under Section 376, and the high court also fell in error in accepting “such convoluted logic”.
Analysing the evidence of the alleged victim, the bench noted her version was a “bundle of contradictions”.
“There cannot be partial rejection of the evidence of the prosecutrix for the purpose of Section 366 IPC and partial acceptance of the very same statement for the purpose of proving the charge under Section 376 IPC,” it said.
The bench said if her evidence is of unimpeachable character, it has to be accepted in entirety.
“While the conduct of the appellant may be immoral and unethical, that by itself would not justify a conviction under Section 376 IPC without any clinching evidence,” it said.
It said such a charge must be proved on the basis of evidence and not on the basis of conjectures based on value judgment by the presiding judge.
“Immorality of an act sans credible evidence cannot justify a conviction,” the bench said.
According to the prosecution, the alleged victim was studying in Class 8 when the accused kept her in a flat in Ludhiana for two days in June 2009 and raped her.
Further, he took her to Malerkotla on his scooter where he allegedly kept her confined in a room in an abandoned factory and raped her.
The prosecution claimed after both of them came back to Ludhiana, they were intercepted by the woman’s father and police, and he was apprehended.
The apex court said from analysis of the evidence of the woman, it was evident that she had willingly accompanied the accused first to the flat and then to Malerkotla.
“Despite passing through busy streets and intersections, she did not raise any hue and cry,” the bench said.
“While the example given by the sessions judge that a lady may travel with a man to a far-off place and even spend a night with him but may not consent to having sex with him (though the use of the word ‘daring’ prefixing ‘women’ is totally uncalled for) may be true, the context is different,” it added.
The trial court, in its judgement had said ‘some daring women’ choose to travel to far off places in the company of men.
The top court set aside the judgments passed by the trial court and the high court and said the appellant is cleared of the charge under Section 376 IPC.
(PTI News)
