SONU Vs. STATE NCT OF DELHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THERE are two appellants before this Court namely Sonu and Judagi. They are aggrieved by the impugned judgment dated 04.10.2002 and order of sentence dated 05.10.2002 wherein Sonu had been convicted under Section 354 of the IPC and had been sentenced to undergo RI for 2 years and to pay a fine of Rs.1000/ - in default of payment of fine to undergo SI for 2 months. Appellant Judagi had been convicted under Section 363 of the IPC had been sentenced to undergo RI for 2 years and to pay a fine of Rs.1000/ - in default of payment of fine to undergo SI for 2 months.

(2.) VERSION of the prosecution was unfolded in the testimony of the prosecutrix ,,N examined as PW -4. Her version is that she had gone from her house at Gaya (Bihar) to the railway station Patna where she had met Judagi; Judagi insisted that he could arrange a job for her; accordingly she accompanied him to Delhi where she was kept in the house of Shankar as a paid servant. Sonu the son of Shankar had committed rape upon her.

(3.) SHE was cross -examined by the learned defence counsel at length. She admitted that she had boarded the train from Patna at about 3.45 p.m.; police were stationed at the railway station; she accompanied Judagi and it took about 17 hours to reach Delhi; she went to the toilet about 3 to 4 times in between; she did not make any complaint to any person either at the railway station or in Delhi about Judagi. She reiterated that Judagi and his wife had given her beatings but no injuries were found on her person at the time of her MLC. She admitted that she had come to Delhi on an earlier date also after the death of her mother; her father was a truck driver and he used to remain outside the house for a long time. On the earlier occasion when she had come to Delhi she had worked in a factory at Mayapuri; she had worked there for about six months and then gone back to the village. She had come to Delhi alone and she had gone back to her house at that time also alone. In the context of her age also she was cross -examined. She admitted that she was the eldest child in the family; on oath at the time of her deposition, she had given her age as 19 years stating that her brother Imtiyaz is two years younger than her and her sister Polia is one year younger to Imtiyaz meaning thereby prosecutrix was about 16 years of age at that time. PW -4 has further deposed that her youngest sister Gulab was aged about seven years at that time.