Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia, Justice K. Vinod Chandran, Supreme Court
Story Put Up By Prosecution Full Of Holes, Raises Reasonable Doubt: Supreme Court Acquits Two Rape Accused
|The Appeal before the Supreme Court was filed by the accused appellants who were alleged to have committed rape upon two women.
The Supreme Court acquitted two men in an alleged case of rape after finding that the story put up by the prosecution raised a grave suspicion which qualified as reasonable doubt.
The accused appellants were alleged to have committed rape and were arrayed along with two others, before the Trial Court. The appellants stood convicted for abduction and rape while the other two were convicted for abduction alone. Two sets of appeals were filed, one by the appellants herein and another by the other two accused. The other two accused persons were acquitted.
The Division Bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice K. Vinod Chandran asserted, “The story put up by the prosecution as spoken of by PWs 2 and 3 are full of holes and it raises a grave suspicion in our minds which qualifies as reasonable doubt.”
AOR Shashibhushan P. Adgaonkar represented the Appellant, while AOR Aaditya Aniruddha Pande represented the Respondent.
Factual Background
It was alleged that the victims (wives of siblings) had a quarrel with their mother-in-law and left their matrimonial home. The two-year-old son of one of the women was also taken with them. Intending to go to Kurla, the two women boarded a tempo in which the accused persons were travelling. The accused promised to take them without charging any fare. The accused, however, refused to stop the vehicle at Kurla and went forward, ignoring the protests made by the victims.
The victims raised a hue and cry when they were threatened with a knife. They were taken to a field and both the women were allegedly raped by the two accused-appellants. It was further alleged that after raping them the accused appellants dropped them at Gangakhed from where they proceeded to Parbhani where they stayed for about 15 days. The Trial Court convicted the accused solely on the testimony of the victims, which was also found to be believable by the High Court.
Reasoning
On a perusal of the facts, the Bench found that the mother-in-law or their husbands were not examined before the Court to substantiate that they had left their marital home. “ It is very pertinent that the two-year-old boy was with the victims at the time when the crime was alleged to have been committed, but there is nothing stated about his whereabouts when the two accused were simultaneously but separately forcefully having sexual intercourse with the victims”, it said.
PW4, who saw the victims along with the child travelling in the tempo, did not identify either of the accused as having travelled in the tempo. It was further noticed that there were contradictory versions given about their stay in Parbhani and nobody was examined to substantiate the stay at Parbhani for 15 days.
“Looking at the totality of the circumstances and the entire story as narrated by the victims, PW 2 and PW3, we find difficulty in accepting their testimony to be one having sterling quality”, it stated. Finding the entire narration to be unbelievable and not substantiated on its finer details, the Bench noted that the victim’s story of having been taken past Kurla and the rape in the deserted field did not inspire confidence. Likewise, the subsequent stay in Parbhani, that too for 15 days, was full of inconsistencies. The police also did not carry out any investigation as to the place where the victims stayed along with the child.
Reference was made to the judgment in Raju v. State of M.P. (2008) wherein it has been observed that the Court should be equally careful in protecting the accused from a false implication.
Even though the medical examination was done after 15 days of the alleged crime, the Bench noticed that the Doctor deposed that if there was forceful sexual intercourse, that too repeated, as evident from the testimony, there would be some injuries which may not be detected after about one or one and a half months. The medical examination was within that period. The Doctor had deposed that he saw no evidence of a forceful sexual intercourse
Thus, the Bench allowed the appeal and acquitted the accused appellants.
Cause Title: Keshav S/o Laxman Rupnar & Anr. v. State of Maharashtra (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 604)
Appearance:
Appellant: AOR Shashibhushan P. Adgaonkar, Advocates Sharangouda Patil, Anoop Raj
Respondent: AOR Aaditya Aniruddha Pande, Advocates Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Bharat Bagla, Sourav Singh, Aditya Krishna, Adarsh Dubey