'False Rape Allegations Cause Humiliation, Damage To Accused': Himachal Pradesh High Court Upholds Acquittal Of 4

“An accused has also rights which are to be protected and the possibility of false implication has to be ruled out,” the bench of Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan and Justice Ranjan Sharma observed while stressing that it cannot be presumed that the statement of the victim is always true or without any embellishment.

The court was essentially dealing with an appeal filed by the State Government challenging the acquittal of 3 rape accused who were booked under Sections 120-B, 376-D, 506 of IPC, Section 3 of the POCSO Act and Section 3(1)(iii)(x) of the SC/ST Act whereas 4^th accused was booked under sections 120-B, 376-D, 506 of IPC and Section 3 of the POCSO Act.

Prosecution’s case

As per the prosecution’s case, in the month of September 2015, when the victim was present at her house, she received a telephonic call from accused/respondent No. 4, who asked her to go to a place ('B'). The victim went to that specified place, where she met other accused/respondents and who offered cold drinks to her and after consuming the same, she became unconscious.

It was further alleged that when she regained her conscious, she found herself without clothes and noticed that one of the accused was making her videography and all the respondents had committed sexual offence with her and had threatened to do away with her life.

Thereafter, the accused/respondent uploaded her video on WhatsApp and when she saw it she told the facts to her family members in May 2016 and then, an FIR was lodged in the case.

Following an investigation, a chargesheet was submitted before the Court, and in the trial, the Court did not find that the charges against the accused were proven, hence, the trial court acquitted all the accused under the charges they were booked.

High Court’s analysis and order

At the outset, the Court noted that once the statement of a rape victim inspires confidence and is accepted by the court as such, conviction can be based on her solitary evidence and no corroboration in such cases.

However, the Court did add that if a trial court finds it difficult to accept the version of the victim at its face value, it may search for evidence, direct or substantial, which may lend assurance to her testimony.

Judged in the light of the aforesaid exposition of the law, the Court found that the testimony contained a large number of contradictions, inconsistencies, concealments, improvements and exaggeration, which, the Court opined, cast a serious doubt.

The Court noted that the victim had not mentioned the date when she was telephonically called by the accused to visit 'B' and she had not even specified the day when she was sexually assaulted by the respondents.

The Court also noted that the information regarding the incident was given only in the next year after eight months in May 2016.

Further, the Court also found the victim’s statement that all the respondents had committed sexual offences against her to be unreliable as the Court reasoned that since she had become unconscious, she wouldn’t have known about the occurrence.

“If the victim was in a naked condition, we really fail to see any reason why the victim had not reported the matter to her family members or to the police immediately or at best within a reasonable time and why she waited for more than eight months to lodge FIR, that too, when she claimed that she came to know that her photographs/video have been uploaded on the Whatsapp. Meaning thereby, had the photographs of the victim not been uploaded on the Whatsapp, the victim would have not registered the FIR and kept mum,” the Court remarked.

Further, the Court also noted that the medical report did not corroborate in any manner the version put forth by the victim.

Regarding the delay in lodging the FIR, the Court observed that the inordinate and unexplained delay in registering the FIR cast a cloud of suspicion regarding the credibility of the prosecution story when read with the testimony of the victim, medical evidence and all other evidence led by the prosecution.

Importantly, the Court noted that if the evidence of the victim is read and considered in the totality of the circumstances along with the other evidence on record on the basis of which the offence is alleged to have been committed, then her deposition does not inspire confidence.

Against this backdrop, finding that the statement of the victim neither stood corroborated by medical evidence nor by any other material on record and even the story regarding uploading of photographs belies her claim, the Court found that the prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

In view of this, the Court allowed the appeal and upheld the acquittal of the accused.