Man gets 7 years in jail for sexually assaulting minor

Pune: A special court here has convicted and sentenced a 23-year-old man to seven years rigorous imprisonment for raping a 13-year-old girl in his room in Moshi in July 2014.
The prosecution had alleged that two months after the rape, accused Manish Rambhole Saket, who was 20 years of age at the time of the offence, had forcibly taken the girl to Satna in Madhya Pradesh. Her father, who lodged the complaint, and the MIDC Bhosari police traced the girl and the accused there and brought them back to Pune. While the girl had not narrated the rape incident to her parents out of fear, she revealed the same when the police, on the basis of her medical report, questioned her in the presence of her mother.

Saket was later chargesheeted and tried for the offences under sections 363 (kidnapping), 366-A (kidnapping and seducing a woman for illicit relation with some other person), 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sections 3 and 4 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

In a ruling on March 3, special judge J T Utpat found Saket guilty of offences of rape under the IPC and sexual assault under POCSO Act and sentenced him to seven years rigorous imprisonment. The sentences are to run concurrently. The conviction for rape/sexual assault was primarily based on the fact that the accused could not prove his innocence. Section 29 of the POCSO Act provides that a person prosecuted for sexual assault shall be presumed as having committed the offence unless the contrary is proved.

The court observed, “Even though the conduct of the victim at the relevant time shows that she was a consenting party, she was below 18 years of age. Her consent is immaterial and in the eyes of the law, it is not consent.” The court relied on the evidence recorded by the medical officer who examined the survivor and other crucial evidences while convicting the accused for rape.

The court acquitted Saket of the offence under section 363 of the IPC while observing, “The survivor’s evidence showed that she quietly and calmly accompanied the accused, and her evidence neither showed any threats nor enticing nor inducement by the accused and the only irresistible conclusion that can be drawn is that the girl accompanied the accused to Satna on her own.” The court further held that Section 366-A could not have been invoked in the case.

Special public prosecutors Heera K Bari, U A Raskar and Sunil S Hande had the girl’s father, the survivor, the medical officer who examined her and the investigating officer in support of the prosecution’s case. Besides the FIR and spot panchanama, key documentary evidence such as medical certificate and opinion were presented before the court.