TARINI MAHTON Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant has been convicted under Section 376, I. P.C., of rape upon a girl of about seven years of age in circumstances involving injury to the girl and has been sentenced to four years rigorous imprisonment and a whipping of 15 stripes.

(2.) The appeal is preferred from jail. The appeal has been admitted to consider the applicability of Section 5, Whipping Act. That section sets out that any juvenile offender (an expression which is defined to mean an offender whom the Court shall find to be under 16 years of age) may, when convicted of committing certain offences of which rape is one, be punished with whipping in lieu of any other punishment to which he may for such offence be liable.

(3.) In the first place, Section 5 does not supersede Section 4 under which the punishment awarded in this case is legal. Section 5 is meant to be applied in proper cases alternatively with Secs.3 and 4 which apply to juvenile offenders as well as to offenders who are not within the definition of juvenile offenders.