Ranchi, September 10: The Jharkhand High Court has modified the conviction of a man in a 1999 criminal case, holding that the evidence established an assault on a woman with intent to outrage her modesty but did not establish a sufficiently specific act amounting to an attempt to rape.
Justice Pradeep Kumar Srivastava, hearing the criminal appeal, altered the conviction under Section 376/511 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to Section 354 IPC. The court, however, maintained the conviction under Section 452 IPC relating to house-trespass.
The case originated from an incident reported to have taken place around midnight on December 27, 1999. According to the prosecution, the accused entered the woman’s house, caught hold of her while she was sleeping and allegedly lifted her clothes.
The woman raised an alarm, following which her mother arrived and the accused fled.The trial court had subsequently convicted the accused under Sections 376/511 and 452 IPC and sentenced him to four years of rigorous imprisonment for the attempted rape charge.
Challenging the conviction, the accused argued that the prosecution had failed to establish the ingredients of attempted rape. The defence also raised questions concerning the delay in filing the police complaint, the non-examination of the investigating officer and the reliability of the prosecution evidence.
The High Court examined the testimony of the woman and other witnesses and observed that none of the other witnesses had directly seen the incident. They had either arrived after the occurrence or had learned about it from the woman.
The court found that the evidence did establish that the accused had caught hold of the woman and committed an assault that was capable of outraging her modesty. However, it did not reveal a specific act sufficiently proximate to the commission of rape to sustain the conviction under Section 376/511 IPC.
Consequently, the court substituted the attempted rape conviction with one under Section 354 IPC.While considering the sentence, the High Court took into account that the incident was more than 26 years old and that the accused had no previous conviction recorded against him.
The court also considered the period already spent by him in custody, which was stated to be around eight months.In view of these circumstances, the court sentenced him to the period of imprisonment already undergone.
Since the accused was on bail, the court discharged him from the liability of the bail bond and also released the sureties from their obligations.The court also directed that a copy of the judgment and the trial court records be returned to the concerned court and disposed of any pending interlocutory applications.
