Mumbai: Observing that the special children must be given extra protection in the society, the Bombay High Court on Thursday upheld the conviction of a man under charges of unnatural sex. The man was convicted by a Mumbai sessions court for raping a 32-year-old special man and had sentenced him to seven years rigorous imprisonment.
A division bench of Justice Mridula Bhatkar was seized with a criminal appeal filed by Ramchandra Yadav, booked for unnatural sex. He challenged the August 2016 orders of the sessions court, convicting him. According to prosecution, Yadav had sodomised the victim man, whose mental age is that of an eight year old. The victim also has a low IQ. Yadav, had asked the victim to come to his office, where he sodomised him and later on took him to Chowpatty where he introduced the victim to his brother.
There, Yadav told the victim that he was going out of Mumbai for some work and that in his absence, the victim has to serve his brother. Just as Yadav dropped the victim to his house in South Mumbai, he narrated the entire incident to his old parents, who rushed to a police station and registered a criminal case against Yadav. The victim man was subjected to medical tests, reports of which, corroborated his claims of being sodomised by Yadav.
In his defense, Yadav urged Justice Bhatkar to show some leniency and commute his punishment. Trashing his submissions, Justice Bhatkar said, “It is an offence of having unnatural sexual intercourse with person having a mild mental retardation with less IQ, who in fact requires to be given more protection by the Society.”
“On the point of leniency, the nature of offence, gravity, victim’s age condition, social conditions and also the conduct of the accused etc. are taken into consideration. The accused after committing the act, has introduced the victim to his brother and told victim that you will satisfy the lust of my brother also. The accused by taking advantage of the mental condition of the victim raped him.
I do not find any mitigating circumstance to reduce the sentence,” Justice Bhatkar ruled. In her judgment, Justice Bhatkar also appreciated the parents of the victim man for developing confidence in their child. “The victim though was mentally ill, had confidence in his parents and for that credit is to be given to his parents, who successfully developed that confidence and open dialogue with their mentally ill son.
Thus, the parents could understand the trauma of their son and then immediately took steps of reporting the incident to the police,” Justice Bhatkar said, while dismissing Yadav’s appeal.
