Times of India | 2 weeks ago | 15-02-2023 | 11:25 am
MARGAO: The fast-track special court, Panaji, has sentenced a man to ten years of rigorous imprisonment for raping a minor. The prosecution, however, failed to establish that the 17-year-old survivor had become pregnant after the accused raped her. He was acquitted on that count. He was 19 at the time of the crime.During the cross-examination, the survivor stated that when she was staying with the accused in a rented room, a fight broke out between them as the accused refused to accept that the child in her womb was his. A complaint was then lodged and he was arrested.The court found that although the medical report showed the survivor was pregnant, no DNA test had been conducted to determine whether the accused was the biological father of the girl child. The investigating officer stated that the DNA test was not conducted as the survivor was not traceable after she filed the complaint.The court found discrepancies in the name of the father shown in the birth certificate of the child and added that no divergence certificate was produced on record to prove that it is of the accused. “As such, that creates doubt on the story of the prosecution as to whether the accused is the father of the child,” stated the presiding officer, fast-track special court (Pocso) Panaji, Durga V Madkaikar. “Thus, the prosecution has failed to establish that pursuant to rape and penetrative sexual act of the accused, the victim, aged 17 years, became pregnant.”The case of the prosecution was that in 2018, on the pretext of marrying the 17-year-old girl, the accused took her to North Goa and raped her.The mother of the girl lodged a complaint after she couldn’t find her daughter. The survivor called her on two to three occasions over a period of two to three months. The mother then invited her to a family wedding. When they met, the woman was shocked to find her daughter four months pregnant.At the time, the accused told the woman that he would marry the girl. However, he backtracked later. In her evidence, the survivor stated that she met the accused through Facebook when she was in Standard IX. Soon thereafter, she dropped out of school to work, following her father’s death. The prosecution’s case was that in 2018, on the pretext of marrying the 17-year-old girl, the accused took her to North Goa and raped her.(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme Court directives on cases related to sexual assault)
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