RAKESH Vs. STATE (GNCTD OF DELHI)

JUDGEMENT

(1.) - Appellant Rakesh challenges the impugned judgment dated 20th March, 2017 convicting him for offence punishable under section 8 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (in short 'POCSO Act') and the order on sentence dated 27th March, 2017 directing him to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of three years and to pay a fine of Rs. 10,000/-, in default whereof to undergo simple imprisonment for a period of three months, for offence punishable under Section 8 of POCSO Act.

(2.) Assailing the conviction, learned counsel for the appellant contends that the police was informed about the alleged incident through mobile phone, however, neither the person who made the call to the police was examined nor the CDRs were collected. The employer of the appellant who provided details of the appellant has also not been examined. No proof was collected to establish that the sister of child victim had appeared in B.Ed. examination. As per the child victim, appellant was arrested on the day of the incident, however, sister of child victim stated that she got to know about the arrest on the next day even though she is a witness to the arrest memo. Lastly, as per the prosecution case, number of people had gathered at the place of occurrence but no public witness was examined.

(3.) Learned APP for the State on the other hand submits that Rakesh has been rightly convicted on the basis of the testimony of child victim (PW-1) corroborated by the testimony of sister of child victim (PW-4). Statement of the child victim was recorded on the very next day of the incident and there was no contradiction in the sequence of events as stated. The only contradiction in the testimonies of PW-1 and PW-4 was with respect to the fact that who dialed the 100 number, which is trivial in nature and would not discredit the credible witnesses.