ROBIN N. MARAK Vs. STATE OF MEGHALAYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant has been convicted for having committed an offence under Sec. 376 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 read with Sec. 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. The appellant has served out nearly eight years of the ten-year sentence suffered by him.

(2.) The incident is of September 8, 2014. The complaint lodged with the Williamnagar Women's Police Station on September 9, 2014 by the mother of the victim claimed that the mother had gone to the market on the previous day and had left her daughters at home in village Wari Mandal. The FIR asserted that when the mother returned in the evening, she found her seven-year-old daughter not at home. The mother claimed that she undertook a search of the nearby areas along with her family members and, at around 5 pm, she found the victim lying in an unconscious state by the nearby jungle stream. The FIR also stated that after the victim was brought home and after she regained her consciousness, she revealed that she had gone to take a bath and wash her younger sister's nappies in the stream, when the appellant herein, who resided in the same village, took her to the upper side of the stream and sexually assaulted her.

(3.) In course of the investigation, the victim narrated the incident and at the time of her deposition at the trial, the victim claimed that she knew the appellant and clearly described that the appellant had raped her, whereupon she became unconscious from the pain that she had to bear. She claimed that when she returned to her senses, she found herself at home.