DEVADAS Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The sole accused in S.C.No.651 of 2015 on the files of the First Additional Sessions Court, Palakkad has come up in this appeal challenging his conviction and sentence in the said case.

(2.) The victim in the case is a girl aged below 12 years. The accused is the step father of the victim girl. The accusation in the case, in essence, is that the accused has committed rape on the victim girl while they were residing together at their house and thereby committed the offences punishable under Sections 376(2)(i) and 376(2)(j) of the Indian Penal Code (the IPC ), Sections 5(m) and 5(n) read with Section 6 , Sections 9(l) , 9(m) and 9(n) read with Section 10 and Section 11(iii) read with Section 12 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (the POCSO Act).

(3.) On the accused pleading not guilty of the charges framed against him, the prosecution examined 13 witnesses as PW1 to PW13 and proved through them 12 documents as Exts.P1 to P12 to establish the case. Among the witnesses examined, PW1 is the Co-ordinator of the childline, PW2 is a member of the childline, PW3 is the doctor who examined the victim girl, PW4 is the mother of the victim girl, PW7 is the teacher of the school where the victim girl was pursuing her studies, PW8 is the Headmistress of the said school, PW10 is the victim girl and PW13 is the Investigating Officer. Among the documents proved, Ext.P1 is the report of the medical examination issued by PW3, Ext.P5 is the certificate indicating the date of birth of the victim girl and Ext.P7 is the complaint of the victim girl which is treated as the First Information Statement in the case. Since the trial court did not consider the case to be one fit for acquittal under Section 232 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (the Code), the accused examined the brother of the victim girl as DW1, when called upon to enter on his defence in the case.