The Allahabad High Court has set aside the life sentence of a person who was convicted of raping a minor Dalit in Aligarh 15 years ago on grounds that there was no evidence to show that he committed the crime only because the victim belonged to a Scheduled Caste.
A Division Bench of Justices Saurabh Shyam Shamshery and Pankaj Naqvi altered the conviction under Section 376 IPC (rape) and Section 3(2)(V) of the SC/ST Act to conviction under IPC 376 only on sentence undergone.
“He [convict] shall be released forthwith, if not detained in any other case”, the court said in an order dated June 5.
The convicted person, who was 20 years old at the time of the crime, has been in jail since February 6, 2008, for more than 12 years.
The matter relates to an April, 15 2009 judgment by a fast-track trial court in which the accused Imshad, was convicted of raping the minor and sentenced for life, being charged under Section 3 (2)(V) of the SC/ST Act in addition to the rape clause.
As per the FIR lodged in the case at the Sasni Gate police station in Aligarh, the victim, aged nine years, was playing in her locality on January 16, 2005 when the accused lured her to a vacant and dilapidated house and raped her.
While appealing against the conviction, the accused person’s lawyer had claimed there was no evidence on record that the accused committed the rape only because the victim was a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe member.
State counsel, however, argued that since the accused was a resident of a locality near which the victim's family lived, it was “highly probable” that he knew that the victim belonged to a Scheduled Caste.
Considering the question if the conviction was sustainable under the SC/ST Act, the court observed: “In the present case, the prosecution has not brought any evidence on record which could even suggest that accused committed the offence of rape, only for the reason that the victim was a member of a Schedule Caste or Schedule Tribe as the accused had no prior acquaintance with the victim”.
The court cited a recent Supreme Court judgment in the Khuman Singh vs. State of Madhya Pradesh: 2019 case, while setting aside the conviction under the SC/ST Act.