STATE Vs. RANJAN KUMAR DAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE judgment dated 30th march, 1994 passed by the Assistant sessions Judge, Gunupur in Sessions Case No. 21 of 1993 acquitting the respondent of the charge under Sections 376/312 of the indian Penal Code is assailed in this appeal.

(2.) THE criminal action was set in moth in on (motion on) an FIR (Ext. 6) being filed at the Bissam Cuttack Police Station by P. W. 3 Pratima Kumari Mohapatra on 4-6-1993 alleging that the respondent who was a distantly related as her brother was carrying on sexual intercourse with her for quite some time with a promise that he would marry her. As a consequence, she became pregnant in the month of January, 1993. After coming to know the fact of her pregnancy, the respondent gave her some medicine tablets and a sum of Rs. 200. 00 instructing her to get the pregnancy terminated. Accordingly she got the pregnancy terminated at the Bissam Cuttack Christian hospital. Thereafter when P. W. 3 requested the respondent to marry her, he refused and finding no other way she lodged the aforesaid FIR. The plea of the respondent was complete denial of his complicity in the matter.

(3.) IN order to substantiate the charge, prosecution got ten witnesses examined on its behalf besides exhibiting several documents. On behalf of the respondent, neither any witness was examined nor was any document exhibited. Out of the ten prosecution witnesses, P. W. 3 was the victim girl, p. W. 5 was her mother, P. W. 2 was a member of the Panchayat Samiti, P. W. 6 was a villager of P. W. 3, P. W. 8 was the headmaster of the School where P. W. 3 was reading, p. W. 9 was the Investigating Officer and other P. Ws. were the doctors who had examined the victim girl on different dates. After going through the evidence of the prosecution witnesses and the documents exhibited in this case this Court finds that the prosecution had successfully established the fact of respondent carrying on sexual intercourse with the victim P. W. 3. But then, the said act was being carried on with consent of P. W. 3 and not forcibly. In view of such fact, the respondent could be convicted only if it could establish that the victim was a minor at the relevant time. The Sessions court after vivid discussion of the evidence, more particularly that of the doctors and the medical test reports found that the victim was 15 to 16 years of age at the time of alleged commission of offence, i. e. she had completed 15 years of age and not 16 years. He held that in consonance with the settled position of law two years are added to her age she would have been 17 to 18 years of age. On the basis of such finding the sessions Court acquitted the respondent.