FATHER SHEPHERD Vs. STATE OF NCT OF DELHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal has been preferred against the judgment of Additional Sessions Judge dated 17th December, 1998 whereby the learned Trial Court convicted the appellant of offence under Section 376 IPC as well as against the order of sentence dated 19th December, 1998 whereby the appellant was sentenced to imprisonment for seven years and a fine of Rs.1,000/-.

(2.) Briefly the facts are that the appellant known as Father Shepherd used to take tuitions/teach children at his home. The prosecutrix aged around 19 years, seemed to be poor in study and was studying in 7th standard. She had started taking tuition from him only a week before this incident. On 3rd May, 1995 she went to the house of accused at 7/25 Nehru Nagar, New Delhi. Three young children, one aged three years, another five years and the third one a girl aged seven years, were already there in the house apart from the accused. On her reaching at the house of the accused for tuition, the accused told the eldest girl, out of the three children present, to call another girl Rajni for tuition. After she went out. the accused became naked and also took off the clothes of the Prosecutrix, made her lie on a sofa and forcibly committed sexual intercourse with her. In the meantime, Rajni came back and the accused hurriedly put on clothes and asked to do the same to Prosecutrix and started shouting at Prosecutrix that she had stolen money from Gullak (money saving box) and she should get out and should not show her face again. The Prosecutrix went along with Rajni to her elder sister and narrated the incident to her, who in turn advised the Prosecutrix to go and tell everything to her mother. On her advising, the Prosecutrix went to her home and narrated the incident to her mother, who took her to the Police Station and lodged an FIR No. 328/95 at P.S. Sriniwaspuri. The girl was sent for medical examination to AIIMS and the accused was arrested on the same night, later on. He was also sent for medical examination. The medical examination of the Prosecutrix showed that there was slight bleeding from the vagina and there was suspected hymen tear. After completing the investigation, challan was filed against the accused. The Prosecutrix in her testimony before the Trial Court gave the same account of the incident as was given by her in her complaint to the police. She was cross-examined at length. She stated in her cross-examination that she had started taking tuition only a week before the incident. She had not paid any tuition fee till then. There was no another woman present in the house at the time of the alleged rape. Two small children remained present in the room during the incident. She reconfirmed that she had bleeded from her private part but did not suffer any other injury. In the incident her salwar was got torn.

(3.) The mother of Prosecutrix had appeared as PW-1. She testified that her daughter went for tuition to the accused around 4.30 p.m. on that day and she returned at 6.30 p.m. She came weeping and disclosed that the accused had committed intercourse with her. She also narrated about her daughter's going to Rajni's house and narrating the incident to her elder sister and on the advice of Rajni's elder sister, the Prosecutrix came home and narrated the incident to her. She then took her to the Police Station and got an FIR registered. The only suggestion given to her was that no such incident had taken place and accused was falsely implicated at the instance of Mr. Joyce, the Secretary of SPG Mission