Cleared – mani
Chennai: A 21-year-old man, who eloped with a minor girl aged 17 years, and later married her, has been found guilty of rape and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for 10 years. The girl, now pregnant and 22-years-old, turned hostile and did not support the prosecution’s rape charges. As a result, in Nov 2022, the Nilgiris sessions court sentenced him to one-year jail term for kidnap and unlawful confinement.

On Tuesday, however, Justice P Velmurugan of Madras high court found him guilty of rape and imposed 10-year jail term on the man saying: “Once the girl was a child at the time of occurrence, there is no question of elopement and consent.”
Rejecting the defence that later marriage nullified the Pocso offence, the court ruled that the offence was against the society, not just the individual concerned. Justice Velmurugan held that accepting such a defence would defeat the object of the Pocso Act and would lead to “disastrous consequences.”
The accused, who was aged 22 years at the time of the incident, and later married the girl, claimed that the girl had left her home fearing a marriage arranged by her parents and had voluntarily come to him. He argued that he merely took her to his relatives’ house and stayed briefly before returning.
The defence maintained there was no allegation of sexual contact before the police or the Magistrate under Section 164 CrPC, and the medical report did not conclusively indicate sexual assault. The girl, when examined, did not support the prosecution and was declared hostile.
It was the prosecution case the girl went with the accused to Mysore, stayed in his relatives’ house, and “they had a physical relationship.” Medical evidence showed her hymen was not intact.
The sessions court convicted the man for kidnap and illegal confinement, but acquitted him for offences under the Pocso Act. The case originated from a missing complaint filed by the girl’s father. The present appeal was filed by the State govt.
Justice Velmurugan, after reviewing the evidence, held that even if the girl approached the accused, he knew she was underage and failed to alert the authorities. The court noted that in her statement to a male magistrate, the girl said “they were together,” which, the court held, indirectly pointed to a physical relationship. It accepted the prosecution’s view that the girl may have avoided explicit terms due to shyness. The trial court, it said, erred in not giving proper weight to this and the medical findings.
During sentencing, the man pleaded with the court that he cared for his wife and mother, and that his wife was pregnant. He sought leniency, claiming ignorance of the law’s seriousness. But the court noted that under Pocso, the minimum punishment is 10 years, which cannot be reduced.
Besides the jail term, the court iposed a fine of ₹1,000 on him. The trial court’s earlier sentence for kidnap and wrongful confinement will run concurrently with the present sentence.
MSID:: 120770588 413 |