DHAN BAHADUR DORJEE Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The instant criminal appeal under Sec. 374[2], Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 ['the CrPC' or 'the Code', for short] is directed against a Judgment and Order dtd. 4/12/2018 passed by the Court of learned Special Judge, POCSO, Karbi Anglong at Diphu ['the trial court', for short] in Special Case no. 01/2015. By the said Judgment and Order dtd. 4/12/2018, the accused-appellant has been convicted for committing the offence of 'penetrative sexual assault', defined in Sec. 3 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences [POCSO] Act, 2012, and he has been sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs.5,000.00, in default of payment of fine, to undergo simple imprisonment for a further period of 2 [two] months.

(2.) The case of the prosecution, in brief, is that investigating machinery was set into motion when the informant as the mother of the prosecutrix, lodged a First Information Report [FIR] before the Officer In-Charge, Kheroni Police Station on 12/3/2015 in respect of an incident alleged to have occurred on 4/3/2015. In the FIR, the informant had inter alia alleged that at around 10-00 p.m. on 4/3/2015, the accused who is the husband of the informant, finding the second daughter of the informant [hereinafter referred to as 'the prosecutrix'], aged about 16 years, alone at home, raped her after giving her threat that she would be cut. The informant had alleged that the accused had committed the act even though the prosecutrix resisted him. The informant had further mentioned that on that day, she had gone to the house of her elder daughter located at Sildubi. It was mentioned that when the informant returned after a few days, the prosecutrix narrated the incident to her.

(3.) On receipt of the said FIR, the Officer In-Charge, Kheroni Police Station registered the same as Kheroni Police Station Case no. 32/2015, on 12/3/2015, for the offences under Sec. 376[2][f], Indian Penal Code [IPC] and Sec. 6 of the POCSO Act, 2012 and entrusted the investigation to one V. Hmar [P.W.8], a Sub-Inspector of Police [W] attached to Kheroni Police Station.