“The child victim has suffered a trauma which is no doubt hard to simply forget and that she would falsely accuse her own father is simply unimaginable,” the bench said. (Representational Image)
The Delhi High Court has sentenced a man to life imprisonment for raping his five-year-old daughter and observed that the victim herself was absolutely clear as to what happened and who the culprit was. In 2014, the man was accused of raping his two daughters, aged five and six, but the trial court had earlier convicted him in one case and acquitted him in another, since the six-year-old had turned hostile in court.
“The victim (five-year-old girl) was very categorical even in the cross-examination that it was not some other person who had committed the crime but, in fact, the appellant (her father). A reading of the deposition of the victim, who was examined as prosecution witness-14, makes it abundantly clear that she was in no doubt as to identify the perpetrator of the crime,” the High Court noted.
Concurring with the finding of the trial court, a bench of Justice S Muralidhar and Justice Vinod Goel upheld the trial court’s conviction and life term imprisonment for the accused. “The child victim has suffered a trauma which is no doubt hard to simply forget and that she would falsely accuse her own father is simply unimaginable,” the bench said.
It said, “The court thus finds no ground made out for taking a view different to that taken by the trial court in the present case…”
The HC, however, modified the trial court’s order awarding Rs 20,000 to the minor and said it was a “meagre amount”.
“The minimum compensation for a rape victim is specified as Rs 3 lakh and the maximum Rs 5 lakh,” it said, directing the Delhi State Legal Services Authority to examine this issue forthwith and ensure that the victim receives the appropriate compensation she is entitled to under the compensation scheme.