MOHAMMED Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) REVISION petitioner was convicted for offences punishable under Ss 376 450 and 506 (ii) of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for 6 years and a fine of Rs. 500/- under S. 376 rigorous imprisonment for two years and fine of Rs. 500/- under S. 450 and rigorous imprisonment for two years under S. 506 (ii) with permission to suffer the substantive sentences concurrently. The appeal filed before the Sessions Judge was unsuccessful.

(2.) THE prosecution case has been fully narrated in the judgments of the Courts below. It appeals that on 30-3-1982 at about 6. 45 P. M. , when PW 1 Jyothi Lakshmi, aged 11 alone was inside the kitchen of her house the accused pushed open the door, entered ins Kitchen, caught hold on her threatened her with death when she cried and committed rape on her When the sexual assault was going on. PW. 2, Aunt of PW. 1, came and saw it and she cried aloud attracting PW. 3 a neighbour. THE accused then ran away.

(3.) I shall consider the opinion of the Doctor again. The happening of the incident cannot be now disputed and it was not actually disputed also. The only argument was that rape has not been proved and what is proved is only an attempt. The former view was that though the prosecutrix cannot be considered to be an accomplice, on the basis of rule of caution and prudence and not on the basis of any rule of law, courts should normally look for some corroboration of her testimony in order to satisfy itself that the prosecutrix is telling the truth and that a person, accused of rape, has not been falsely implicated, even though not in all cases. The nature of the extent of corroboration where it was not considered safe to dispense with it, was held to vary with the circumstances of each case and also according to the particular circumstances of the offence charged, (See Rameshwar Kalyan Singh v. State of Rajasthan, AIR 1952 SC 54, A. W. Khan v. State (AIR 1962 Calcutta 641 and Madho Ram v. State of Uttar Pradesh AIR 1973 SC 469 ). But the judicial conception in that respect has undergone a gradual change. Even now insistence on corroboration in cases of doubtful evidence of the posecutrix is there, but that is only part of the general rule of appreciation of evidence.