Mumbai: A special court in Dindoshi, designated for sexual crimes on children, sentenced a 27-year-old to 12-years rigorous imprisonment for raping his teenage niece, an assault which had resulted in a pregnancy that was later terminated.
While DNA reports showed that the man was the father of the aborted foetus, the victim, who was a 13-year-old at the time of the assault in 2016 and her mother, the complainant in the case, did not support the prosecution’s case in the court.
In the court, the victim had denied that the incident had ever taken place or that she had got pregnant. Her mother also denied the incident and said that her daughter was 18 or 19 years old in 2016 and that she had given birth at home in Bihar. The victim’s father had appeared as a defence witness and said that his brother-in-law was married to his daughter in 2016, a claim not made by either the girl or her mother.
Judge AD Deo, however, noted in her judgment that considering their inter-se relations, they did not support the case and that it is a common observation that in matters of incest, such relations being very close, the elder family members try to suppress such incidents and relatives too are reluctant to expose them.
She said further in her judgment that she did not find the case fit for victim compensation as considering that the victim did not support the case, there is nothing on record to infer that she suffered trauma due to it.
“On the contrary the victim and her parents had the audacity to depose false before the court,” it stated. The court however, did not initiate perjury proceedings against the girl as “the victim was 13 years when she lodged the FIR and the investigation had begun”.
