The Madhya Pradesh High Court has modified its order which reduced the life sentence of a rapist of a four-year-girl to 20 years, stating that he “kind enough” to leave the victim alive. The High Court took suo motu cognizance of the matter and noted that an “inadvertent mistake” was made while giving the judgment on October 18, 2022, wherein the word “kind” was used to refer to the rapist.
A bench of Justice Subodh Abhyankar and Satyendra Kumar Singh later replaced the statement — “he was kind enough to leave the prosecutrix alive” — with “he did not cause any other physical injury to the victim”.
The High Court also noted, “It is apparent that the aforesaid mistake is obviously inadvertent in the context, as this court has already held the act of the appellant as demonic.”
The order has been passed in a plea filed by a rape convict challenging the judgment of the trial court finding him guilty of rape of a four-year-old child and awarding life imprisonment.
The convict used to live in a tent near the victim’s hut. He had called her into his tent on the pretext of giving her a rupee. After some time, the grandmother of the child heard her cries and raised an alarm after which, the girl’s father came out of his tent.
When the father went into the convict’s tent, he saw that his daughter was lying on the ground and bleeding, whereas the convict started running away.
Dr. Ranjana Patidar, who examined the victim at the hospital, also saw the child was bleeding.
The counsel appearing for the convict had submitted that there is no cogent evidence available on record to connect the convict with the offense as even the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) report is not brought on record in support of the case of the prosecution.
The counsel for the state, however, submitted that no illegality has been committed by the judge of the trial court in appreciating the evidence and convicting the man.
After going through the record, the bench noted that it does not find any error by the trial court and considers the “demonic act” of the convict, who appears to have no respect for the dignity of a woman. The court also said it did not find it to be a fit case where the sentence can be reduced.
However, the bench while reducing the sentence of the convict had said “considering the fact that he was kind enough to leave the prosecutrix alive, this court is of the opinion that the life imprisonment can be reduced to 20 years’ rigorous imprisonment.”
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