STATE OF H.P. Vs. HANS RAJ

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Mr. Sunil Awasthy, Advocate, has been requested to assist this Court as Amicus Curiae and he has kindly agreed to the same. Accordingly, Mr. Sunil Awasthy, Advocate, has assisted this Court in response to the submissions made on behalf by Mr. R.K. Sharma, Sr. Additional Advocate General, for the Appellant -State.

(2.) The present criminal appeal has come up for consideration after leave to appeal under Sec. 378(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure has been granted in reference to the impugned judgment and order dated 22.02.2001, passed by learned Sessions Judge, Shimla, District Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, in Sessions Trial No. 27 -S/7 of 2000, acquitting the alleged accused under Sec. 376 of Indian Penal Code.

(3.) Prosecution case in brief is that the victim -prosecutrix while deployed as maid servant in Shimla, on 17.08.1999, around 8 p.m., left the place of her master to dump garbage. The Respondent -accused, employed as barber in a shop situated near the site of dumper, called the victim -prosecutrix and took her to the shop of his employer and after pulling down the shutter of the shop, sexually assaulted her. When the victim -prosecutrix tried to raise hue and cry, accused -Respondent shut her mouth. When the victim -prosecutrix did not return for a considerable time, her master's wife became apprehensive. She went in search of the victim -prosecutrix in the company of a few ladies living in her neighbourhood. On hearing her master's wife's shouts, the victim -prosecutrix somehow got herself released from the clutches of the accused -Respondent. The victim -prosecutrix narrated the incident to her master's wife and the ladies accompanying her. The FIR was lodged and on investigation, the accused -Respondent was charged for the aforesaid offence.