Discrepancies in sexual offence victim’s testimony do not mean she is lying: HC
The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court recently held that a witness, especially a rape or sexual abuse victim is not a ‘taperecorder’ to depose in verbatim of her original statements. The HC said that some sort of discrepancies are bound to appear in a rape victim’s testimony because she suffers from mental stress.
A single-judge bench of Justice Kishor Sonawane rapped a trial court for acquitting a Palestinian national man and an Iranian national woman from a sexual harassment case by considering some ‘discrepancies’ in the testimony of the victim.
Justice Sonawane said, “The witness is not like a tape-recorder. When the victim of a sex offence is giving evidence before a Court, under mental stress, her memory may not serve her complete right.”
“In such mental disposition, some sort of discrepancies are bound to appear in her evidence. But, it does not mean that her entire evidence
The witness is not like a tape-recorder. When the victim of a sex offence is giving evidence before a Court, under mental stress, her memory may not serve her completely right
should be thrown out,” Justice Sonawane ruled. The court was seized with a criminal appeal filed by the Maharashtra government against the acquittal of Allha Abdul Rahim Mohammed (27) and Parvin Husen (46) accused of sexually harassing their classmate. While Allha was accused of forcibly demanding sexual favours from a newly enrolled girl in his college, the lady Parvin was accused of abetting the sexual harassment.
The defence argued that though the girl was abused sexually in August but she registered a criminal complaint only in the month of October. They claimed that the girl falsely implicated them to settle personal scores.
“In the instant case the delay caused in filing of FIR does not prove fatal to the prosecution case,” Justice Sonawane said, adding, “It cannot be ignored that the victim was a young unmarried girl and student so she would normally not expose herself to shame and ignominy in the campus of the university or in the society. The issue of her family’s honour was also involved for consideration prior to making public the indecent incident by lodging the FIR.”
Justice Sonawane also reiterated the observation of the Supreme Court that in a tradition-bound society of India, a girl or a woman would be extremely reluctant to admit any such incident even occurred, which would reflect on her chastity.
“It would be inconceivable that an unmarried college student would go to the extent of staking her reputation, character and future by implicating accused falsely. This mental turmoil would prevent her from approaching the police but she however mustered courage and filed the FIR. The reluctance to go to the police was because of society’s attitude for such women, which always creates doubt and shame upon her rather than confront and sympathise with her. In the result, the delay in lodging FIR cannot be said to be detrimental to the prosecution case,” Justice Sonawane further held.
The judge accordingly convicted the duo of sexually harassing the classmate and even considered the period served as an under-trial in the prison as sufficient punishment.