Man Charged With Sexual Assault Of Minor Stepdaughter In 2014 Acquitted

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday acquitted a man of the charge of sexually assaulting his minor stepdaughter in 2014, saying the child's testimony does not inspire confidence.

The high court set aside the trial court's order convicting and sentencing the man to life imprisonment.

It said there were multiple reasons to grant the benefit of the doubt to the man and added that the testimony of the victim, who was 12 years old at the time of the alleged incident, did not inspire much confidence.

The high court said a child has not enough maturity, and if tutored, the can go to any extent of exaggeration and, therefore, it becomes unsafe to rely upon the testimony of a child witness whose statement is found to be based on tutoring.

"Indubitably, in cases of sexual assault, testimony of a child witness can form the basis of a conviction. However, a crucial pre-requisite is that it must not be on account of any tutoring. Since child witness is susceptible to tutoring, the court should seek corroborating evidence, especially when signs of tutoring are evident in such testimony," a bench of Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Manoj Jain said.

The court noted that the man has already spent more than six years in custody.

The bench noted the alleged victim had categorically said during her cross-examination that she had accused her stepfather of sexually assaulting her at the behest of her maternal grandmother who was fed up with his alcoholism.

It noted that a cousin, mother and grandmother of the alleged victim did not support the prosecution's case and that the DNA report was also of no avail to the State.

"We also cannot be unmindful of the fact that despite the fact that 'S' had been sexually assaulted as alleged by the prosecution, she kept on visiting the accused frequently in the jail which has also not been explained by the prosecution. If at all such an act had been committed by the accused, she would not have dared to visit her stepfather repeatedly in the jail," the bench said.

While the prosecution submitted that the victim's mother did not support the case as she was the wife of the accused, the bench said she might be in a kind of dilemma but generally no mother would like to ignore or hide the commission of such a heinous act upon her daughter.

The high court said the girl's grandmother, in her attempt to put an end to the man's addiction to alcohol, devised a plot and thought that his confinement in prison for a longer duration might serve as a cure but little did she realise that the idea was imminently dangerous and hazardous.

It said the grandmother had no business to tutor her granddaughter and make her depose about commission of sexual assault which never occurred. 

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