SIDDIK SINGH PRITAM SINGH Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) OCCASIONALLY, criminal trials bring before the Courts human beings who are accused of acts of shuddering brutality. In this day and age, the offence of rape, which was more in tune with tribal society and conquering armies, is still mani?festing itself and, having regard to its abhor?rent nature has been classified along with that class of offences that call for stringent punishment. It is despicable enough when the attack is on an adult female, but the situation becomes far more gory when the victim is a minor and virtually crosses the limits of depravity in cases where the offence is directed against an infant. The law has, therefore, upgraded the punishment and prescribed an ascending scale of stringency as the age of the victim goes lower. A Court would be fully justified, therefore, in award?ing the maximum sentence where the victim was a four-month old female child which was killed in the process. In this background, we proceed to deal with the present set of appeals.

(2.) THE facts of this case are, indeed, most horrifying. The appellant in Criminal Appeal No. 510 of 1991, at the relevant time an Army Jawan, stands convicted for having kidnap?ped and murdered a four-month old infant at Pune and thereafter having thrown the dead body in an unused well. The trial Court acquitted the appellant on certain aggravated charges of kidnapping and of having com?mitted rape on the infant; whereupon the State of Maharashtra has filed a companion appeal, being Criminal Appeal No. 611 of 1991, against the acquittal on those charges. Sordid as they are, it is essential for us to set out some of the gruesome details.

(3.) IT is alleged that on the afternoon of 2-11-1990, two Army Jawans, who were posted at Pune, the present appellant, Siddik Singh Pritam Singh, aged about 26 years, and original accused No. 2 Gurmal Singh Lalsingh, aged about 25 years, went to a brothel at house No. 989 at Budhwar Peth, Pune, which house is situated in. the red-light area. They are alleged to have met the women who were carrying on prostitution at that place and after some enquiries with them, accused No. 2 is alleged to have gone into a room with Madhu Nepali (PW 2); while accused No. 1, who is the present appellant, was alleged to have been seated outside at the time of the incident. It is his case in his subsequent statement to the Army Authorities that he had also had sex with one of the women there and the evidence of Chanda Nepali (PW 1) is to the effect that when she left the place to bring some clothes, accused No. 1 picked up her four-month old girl child and left the house hurriedly. It is alleged that some of the other women saw his leaving hurriedly and raised an alarm to the effect that the Sardarji has taken away the daughter of Chanda. The women obviously did not know the names of the two accused and consistently refer to the present appellant as the man with a red turban and to accused No. 2 as the man with the black turban. Accused No. 1 is alleged to have got into an autorickshaw and decamped with the child, and on the alarm being raised, accused No. 2 came out of the room and even though he tried to make good his escape, the women caught him and he was subsequently handed over to the police.