Top court upholds conviction of man accused of rape

The testimony of a mentally challenged woman, who had narrated the incident of rape committed upon her in question answer form before the trial court, has nailed the offender as the Supreme Court Thursday upheld his conviction while terming her statement as “credible”.

The 36-year-old woman, who is suffering from 70% disability and was raped in Uttarakhand in September 2015, had testified before the trial court in question answer form as oath could not be administered to her since she was unable to understand its meaning.

The trial court, which had convicted and sentenced the man to 10-year jail in October 2016, had noted in its verdict that during her cross-examination the woman had rightly identified the photo frames of father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi and former PM Lal Bahadur Shastri.

A plea filed by the convict challenging the March 2019 verdict of the high court, which had dismissed his appeal and affirmed the trial court’s judgement, came up for hearing before a bench of justices L Nageswara Rao and Aniruddha

Bose. “There are certain tradictions in the evide However, we are of the con ered view that the testimon the prosecutrix (woman) w is credible can be the sole b for the conviction of the ap lant under section 376 (2)( the IPC,” the bench said.

An advocate, who was as ing the top court as an am curiae and representing convict, told the bench there was no medical evide to support the allegations to the delay in lodging of and medical examination.

“We have carefully scr nised the entire materia record, including the evide that is filed by the prosecut After considering the sub sion of the counsel for appellant, we are not in ag ment that an error has b committed by the court be in convicting the appel under section 376 (2)(l),” bench said, while dismis the plea.