SONIBARSON MARWEIN Vs. STATE OF MEGHALAYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant has been sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for 20 years for offences punishable under Sec. 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and fined Rs.25,000.00. In default of payment of the fine, the appellant is to undergo three further months of simple imprisonment.

(2.) The first information report was lodged in this case at the Nongstoin Police Station in West Khasi Hills on February 12, 2020 by the mother of a 12-year-old girl and two others. According to the FIR, the survivor had been continually raped by the appellant for a substantial period of time in the year 2019 and up to January, 2020. The appellant is the maternal uncle of the survivor.

(3.) In her initial statement to the investigating agency recorded under Sec. 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, the survivor narrated that the appellant had "sexually assaulted" her several times when she was alone at home. She recounted that the appellant "used to come to my bedroom and touch me inappropriately and inserted his penis inside my private part." She could not indicate the exact date or month when the incident first occurred but she maintained that the appellant committed the act several times, including when she was at home or in the jungle searching for wood or fetching water. The girl narrated that in the month of January, 2020 "my uncle again committed the same act upon me inside the toilet at my grandmother's house." She claimed that she was too afraid to report the matter to anybody initially, but she could not bear it anymore and told her mother.