LIAQAT Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) LIAQAT has come up to this Court in appeal against his conviction and sentence of three years' rigorous imprisonment and six stripes for an offence punishable under Section 376 of the Indian penal Code.

(2.) THE prosecution case is that the appellant is a close neighbour of one Babhan Mirza, who had a daughter named Kumari Phunda aged about 7 1/2 years. Liaqat appellant is himself a boy aged about 16 years, though the medical examination report shows that he is fully developed and has attained a height of 5 feet 4 inches. On 29-5-1951, when. Phunda was playing near the door of her house at about 4 or 4. 30 in the evening, the appellant came to her and asked her to come with him to his mango grove promising to give her some mangoes. She agreed and then the appellant carried the girl in his lap to the grove. On reaching the grove, Liaqat removed his own trousers as well as those of the girl, put her on the ground and had sexual intercourse with her the girl felt pain and cried and thereupon the appellant left her. The girl started bleeding; from her private parts. The appellant took her to a pond nearby and there washed the blood stained trousers of the girl as well as his own trousers. He escorted the girl back upto a place somewhere near her house and then left her. He had told her that she should not disclose the incident to any one otherwise they could both be caught implying that this would result in both being punished. The girl kept quiet at her house for some time; but, probably due to the pain she was feeling, she later disclosed the whole incident to her mother. The incident was then related to her father, who took her to a police station, which was situated three miles away There the girl lodged a report at 11. 30 P. M. The case was investigated and the appellant was prosecuted for committing rape on the girl.

(3.) THE appellant pleaded not guilty and stated that he had a quarrel with one Qasim, nephew of babban Mirza, the father of the girl, and it was as a result of that incident that he had been falsely implicated in this case.