MANGE Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this appeal by special leave the appellant has been convicted under S. 376 of the I. P. C. and sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for three years and a fine of Rs. 300/-. The prosecution case has been fully narrated in the judgment of the High Court and the Sessions Judge. It appears that on the 10th June, 1972 at about 8.00 a. m. Raj Bala the daughter of P. W. 5 Jaswant Singh was stopped by the accused while she was coming through a 'Pag-dandi' and was forcibly taken into the chamber (kotha) of the tube-well of the accused on which she started crying. Her cries attracted Mohinder Singh, P. W. 4, the step brother of the father of Raj Bala. Mohinder Singh entered into the chamber of the accused and saw the accused lying upon Raj Bala and committing sexual intercourse with her. On seeing Mohinder Singh, the appellant left her and ran away. Mohinder Singh then brought Raj Bala to her house and he found that the 'nalla of the salwar' of the girl had been snapped and the 'salwar' had been brought up to her ankles and was blood-stained. Jaswant Singh, the father of Raj Bala had gone to Delhi and when he returned the entire occurrence was narrated to him by P. W. 4 Mohinder Singh. Thereafter, Jaswant Singh went to the police station and lodged first information report at 10 p.m. The police after usual investigation submitted charge-sheet against the appellant on the basis of which the appellant was convicted by the Sessions Judge, as indicated above. The appellant filed an appeal before the High Court which was also dismissed and thereafter, he filed a petition to this Court for grant of special leave and after obtaining special leave, this appeal has been placed before us.

(2.) The central evidence against the appellant consisted of the statement of P. W. 4 Mohinder Singh which was corroborated by the blood-stained 'salwar' found and produced before the police and the medical evidence. The evidence of P. W. 4 was corroborated by P. W. 5 Jaswant Singh to whom Mohinder Singh narrated the entire story. A portion of the swab was taken from the vagina and sent to the Chemical Examiner who found seminal stain thereon. This also corroborated the story of rape. Both the courts below have found that the prosecution has proved the case beyond reasonable doubt. In support of the appeal Mr. Marwah, Advocate has raised a number of arguments before us which appear to be wholly untenable. In the first instance, it was contended that Raj Bala was not examined by the prosecution and on that ground alone the prosecution case must fail. It appears, however, that Raj Bala was a deaf and dumb girl of only 13 years of age. So apart from being a child witness, she was also deaf and dumb and no useful purpose would have been served by examining her. Moreover, if there was any infirmity in the prosecution case the same has been removed by the examination of P. W. 4 Mohinder Singh who was a full-fledged eye-witness to the act of rape. Once the courts below believed the evidence of P. W. 4 that the appellant had forcibly performed sexual intercourse with Raj Bala there was an end of the matter. No further corroboration was required. It was then pointed out that medical evidence does not support that the rape had taken place on the 10th of June, 1972 because the lady doctor says that the girl may have been subjected to intercourse two days before. It is true that the lady doctor who examined Raj Bala has said that if it was a case of a fresh rape bleeding should have been there and the duration of injury found on the victim may be about 12 to 28 hours. Her evidence, however, does not clearly exclude the act of rape having been committed on the 10th of June, 1972 at about 8 a.m. It was then contended that the doctor found that hymen was torn and ruptured yet she did not find any swelling, redness or inflammation around the bruises which should have normally been found if rape had been committed recently. This circumstance is not sufficient to put the prosecution case out of court because the fact that there was a rupture of the hymen and a bruise around the hymen was sufficient to prove the act of rape. It is difficult for any medical expert to give the exact duration of time when the rape was committed. More particularly when we have the evidence of P. W. 4 as to the time and date of the occurrence, the medical evidence can hardly be relied upon to falsify the evidence of the eye witness because the medical evidence is guided by various factors based on guess and certain calculations. We are therefore unable to discard the evidence of P. W. 4 on the basis of the statement by the lady doctor. It was then contended that page No. W. 4 did not narrate the occurrence to the mother of the girl Mst. Murti, P. W. 6. To begin with, P. W. 4 had undoubtedly brought the victim to Mst. Murti in a condition from which anybody could have presumed that a sexual intercourse had been committed with her. P. W. 4 was after all the step brother of Jaswant Singh and may have though it better to wait until his brother returned to narrate the details of the occurrence lest he might be misunderstood by Mst. Murti. Her father Jaswant Singh had gone to Delhi and he returned some time in the evening and as soon as he returned P.W. 4 narrated the occurrence to him. In these circumstances, therefore, the omision of the witness to narrate the incident of the rape, to Mst. Murti is clearly explainable. Some other contentions had been raised by the learned counsel for the appellant also which we do not find it necessary even to mention. On a consideration of the evidence and circumstances, therefore, we are satisfied that the High Court was right in holding that the prosecution case against the appellant had been fully proved. We do not see any force in this appeal which is dismissed accordingly.