Even as growing incidents of rape in Haryana
have sparked a public outrage against the state government’s apathy, the
Supreme Court on Friday asked the subordinate courts not to leave a rape
accused scot-free on flimsy grounds.
A bench headed by Justice P Sathasivam
reversed a Uttar Pradesh high court order acquitting a man of raping and
murdering an 11-year-old girl and said courts must be cautious in appreciating
evidence in rape cases. The accused was let-off due to variance in the
witnesses’ statement given to the police and then later to the court. Observing
that the “primary concern at national and international level was about the
devastating increase in rape cases”, the bench said the accused should not get
relief on mere technical grounds.
“Although the statutory provisions provide
strict penal action against such offenders, it is for the courts to ultimately
decide whether such incident has occurred or not….In the instant case, the
accused had committed rape, which repels against moral conscience as he chose a
girl of 11 years to satisfy his lust and subsequently murdered her,” the bench
said, sentencing him to life imprisonment.
It held the HC’s analysis and conclusion was
contrary to the acceptable material placed by the prosecution. But the SC
refrained from sending the accused to gallows on the ground the incident was a
decade old.
