RAJESH S/O KEWALRAMJI CHUTE Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA, THROUGH POLICE STATION OFFICER POLICE STATION SAKOLI, DISTRICT BHANDARA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Exception is taken to the judgment and order dated 6.6.2012, in Sessions Trial 52 of 2010, delivered by the Sessions Judge, Bhandara, by and under which, the appellant (hereinafter referred to as "the accused") is convicted for offence punishable under section 376 of the Indian Penal Code ("IPC") and is sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for three years and is further convicted for offence punishable under section 506 of the IPC and is sentenced to payment of fine of Rs. 2000/-.

(2.) Heard Shri. Amit Kukday, the learned counsel for the accused and Shri. P.S. Thembhare, the learned Additional Public Prosecutor for the respondent/State.

(3.) The learned counsel for the accused submits that the evidence of the prosecutrix, who is examined as PW 1, is not implicitly reliable and confidence inspiring. The learned counsel for the accused Shri. Amit Kukday, would submit that the evidence of the prosecutrix ought to have been tested more cautiously in view of the admitted bad blood between the prosecutrix and the accused. It is also not in serious dispute that the accused is residing with his parents and is in possession of the major portion of the agricultural land and that the brother of the accused (husband of the prosecutrix) and the prosecutrix are cultivating only 1 acre of the ancestral agricultural land and are residing separately. In this backdrop, that no injuries are visible on the person of the prosecutrix including the genitalia, no signs of injury are found in the medical examination of the accused, no signs of forcible sexual intercourse were seen in the spot panchanama, like broken pieces of bangles, the inherent improbability clouding the version of the prosecutrix that at 12.00 noon in a crowded locality, the brother in law of the prosecutrix dragged her to his residence, threatened her of physical harm and then ravished her for 10 to 15 minutes, are all cumulative circumstances which would suggest that the defence of false implication is more than probabilised on the touchstone of preponderance of probabilities.