SAMADHAN KASHIRAM KHIRODKAR Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By the present appeal, appellant-Samadhan is challenging the judgment and order of conviction passed by Ad hoc Additional Sessions Judge, Khamgaon, Dist. Buldhana in Sessions Trial No.92/2015 whereby the appellant is convicted for the offence punishable under Section 376 (2) (i) and (n) of the Indian Penal Code and also under Section 6 of the Protection of Children From Sexual Offences Act, 2012. The appellant is sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for 10 years and to pay a fine of Rs.1,000/- and in default of payment of fine to suffer rigorous imprisonment for one month.

(2.) I have heard Mr. R. R. Vyas, learned counsel for the appellant and Mrs. Kolhe, learned A.P.P. for the State in extenso. They took me through the record and proceedings minutely. According to the submissions of the learned counsel for the appellant, the appellant is falsely implicated in the crime. It is also his submission that possibility of tutoring of the victim by her mother Uma Wadode (PW2) cannot be completely ruled out. It is also his submission which is based on the answers given by the appellant when his statement under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was recorded that due to the political enmity between him and one Avinash Umbarkar, at the behest of said Avinash Umbarkar, false case is lodged against him. It is also his submission that if evidence of the victim is read as a whole, the said does not inspire confidence. It is also his submission that there is a delay in lodging the FIR. Therefore, false implication is not completely ruled out. He, therefore, submitted that appeal be allowed and the appellant, who is in jail be set at liberty.

(3.) Uma (PW2), mother of the victim lodged her oral report with Police Station Jalgaon Jamod on 27.08.2015 (Exh.- 32). On the basis of the said oral report, offence was registered against the appellant vide Crime No.132/2015 for the offence punishable under Section 376 (2) (ii) & (n) of the IPC and Sections 3, 4 and 6 of the POCSO Act. Gist of the FIR is that on 23.08.2015 when the victim had been to her grandmother's house that time the appellant who resided near the house of her grandmother called her to his house and asked her to sweep his house and that time he made sexual advances towards her by kissing her and thereafter touching her private part and also asked her that she should not disclose this fact to anybody. On the next day also, he called her in his house and thereafter placed his hand in her knicker and fingered her vagina, resulting into pains. According to the FIR, this act on the part of the appellant was disclosed to her mother by the victim on 26.08.2015 at 12.00 O'clock in the night. Thereafter, she approached to Police Station and lodged the report.