TRIMBORILIN KHARBANI Vs. STATE OF MEGHALAYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant assails a judgment of conviction of December 21, 2018 that found him guilty under Sec. 3(a) read with Sec. 4 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and the resultant punishment. The appellant has been sentenced to suffer imprisonment for ten years and to pay a fine of Rs.20,000.00. In default of payment of the fine, the appellant has to undergo an additional year of imprisonment.

(2.) In seeking to question the propriety of the impugned judgment of conviction, the appellant submits that the only basis for the conviction is the statement of the alleged victim as there was no witness and the only attempt at corroboration of the incident is through the self-serving statements of the close relatives of the alleged victim. The appellant seeks to point out that in course of his response to the questions put to him by the trial court under Sec. 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, the appellant had made out a case that there was considerable enmity between the father of the alleged victim and the appellant since the appellant had tried to dissuade the father of the alleged victim from continuing an extra-marital affair with an aunt of the appellant.

(3.) The appellant points out that the first information report came to be lodged more than two weeks after the incident and there was no explanation furnished in the FIR to explain the delay. The appellant says that the delay was sought to be covered up in a tutored manner in course of the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses and it is also apparent that one of the sisters of the alleged victim merely regurgitated what had been testified by another sister, without having any personal knowledge of the matter referred to in her testimony.