The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Madurai News : Bench reverses sentence imposed on rape accused

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Tuesday, Jul 01, 2008
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Tamil Nadu - Madurai

Bench reverses sentence imposed on rape accused

Staff Reporter

It points out several infirmities in the prosecution case

MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has reversed the seven-year rigorous imprisonment imposed by a trial court on a person accused of raping a housewife at Natham in Dindigul district in 1999.

Allowing a criminal appeal, Justice A. Selvam said the conviction could not be sustained in view of several infirmities in the prosecution case, besides the existence of a property dispute between the complainant and the accused.

The complainant had failed to give sufficient explanation for approaching the police after 15 days of the alleged incident. Further, her evidence was not in consonance with that of the doctor who conducted the medical examination, he said.

The complaint claimed that she had sustained injuries all over the body while being dragged by the accused to a tamarind tree near her house. The doctor did not find any injury on the complainant’s body, but for one on her private part, the judge said.

The doctor had not stated the age and nature of the injury. “If really, PW1 [the complainant] had sustained the said injury and if treatment had not been taken, definitely, pus would have formed in the said injury…On that score also, the court cannot believe the evidence of PW1,” Mr. Justice Selvam said.

The complainant also stated that she had handed over to the police the bloodstained clothes worn by her at the time of the alleged incident. However, no such cloth was produced before the trial court. This was “really fatal to the case of the prosecution,” the judge said.

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