Ghaziabad: A teenager’s four-year-long battle for justice ended in success after a special Pocso court on Friday sentenced the man who sexually assaulted her to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment and fined him Rs 1.05 lakh.Judge Neeraj Gautam said the survivor was under 16 years at the time of the incident. “Therefore, the charges against the accused under Section 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of IPC and Section 376(3) (raping a woman under the age of 16) of IPC, as well as Section 4(2) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, are proven beyond reasonable doubt,” the court said.The court said that out of the total fine, Rs 1 lakh must be given to the minor to meet the expenses of her treatment and rehabilitation.The survivor filed an FIR with the Nandgram police station on June 28, 2022, alleging the accused raped her a day before. She explained the one-day delay in filing the FIR — which could have proven detrimental to her case — was because her father was not present at the house when she went back home and she had to gather courage to talk to her aunt before she could file the complaint. Her mother died years ago.Police registered a case under sections 323 and 376 of the IPC and, after collecting documents and evidence, included Section 3/4 of the PocsoAct.The accused denied the charges and preferred a trial.The survivor said she was on her way to a coaching class on the day of the incident when a group of four boys, two among them minors, stopped her. They dragged her to a nearby kuccha house, where the accused raped her while the three others stood guard.However, the doctor who conducted her medical test stated there were no injury marks to suggest that she was raped.Despite the doctor’s findings, the prosecution cited the judgements of Vijay Chini vs State of Madhya Pradesh (2011) and Ganeshan vs State of Tamil Nadu (2020) and said confirmation by medical report is not mandatory for the establishment of aggravated penetrative sexual assault.The court heard both sides and said that in the present case, the survivor’s evidence is reliable and reasonable as her statement under Section 164 of the CrPC and the statement of the investigating officer establishes that the accused committed rape.“There is uniformity in the entire evidence of the survivor and there is no substantial contradiction. Thus, it becomes clear that the survivor’s evidence is natural and reasonable where she can be considered a sterling witness,” the judge ruled and decided to pronounce the accused guilty.
