Is 84-yr-old father of teen’s rape-child? SC orders test

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered DNA test on an 84-year-old retired Army man and a four-day-old baby to determine whether he fathered the child through sexual exploitation of a 14-year-old girl in Siliguri, West Bengal.
It was the octogenarian, accused under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, who moved the SC through advocate Ankur Chawla demanding a DNA test along with the baby born to the girl on July 5. He was arrested on May 11, when the girl’s father lodged a complaint with Siliguri police claiming that he noticed unusual behaviour in his daughter and came to know that she was pregnant because of sexual exploitation by the octogenarian.
Appearing for the accused, senior advocate Kapil Sibal told a bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, Sanjay K Kaul and M R Shah that the West Bengal police had carried out a shoddy investigation. He said there was a tenant-landlord dispute and the accused had been asking the girl’s father to vacate the premises for a long time as he was not paying rent. Sibal said it was impossible not to notice the girl’s pregnancy till May 11 when she would have been seven months pregnant and claimed that rape charges were a frame-up.
The 84-year-old said he was sexually sterile and a diabetic, making it impossible for him to impregnate a woman. His counsel Chawla said, “Police appear to have been in cahoots with the girl’s father as they did not bother to conduct a potency test, which is mandatorily required to be conducted on an accused arrested on a rape complaint.”