PRAYAGRAJ: While quashing a life imprisonment sentence, the Allahabad High Court observed that the influence of Western ideas and the concept of live-in relationships is leading to an increase in the tendency among young people to live together without marriage. The court also noted that criminal cases are often filed when such relationships break down.
A bench of Justices Siddharth and Prashant Mishra-I made these observations while setting aside the conviction and sentence, including life imprisonment, awarded to the appellant Chandresh by the Special Judge (POCSO Act), Maharajganj, in March 2024.
The appellant had been convicted under Sections 363 (kidnapping), 366 (kidnapping for marriage), and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the IPC, Section 6 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault) of the POCSO Act, and Section 3(2)(V) of the SC/ST Act.
The prosecution alleged that the appellant had lured the complainant’s minor daughter to Bengaluru on the pretext of marriage and later established physical relations with her. However, the High Court found that the victim was an adult. The court also found that the lower court had not properly considered the ossification test report, which proved her age to be approximately 20 years.
The bench also noted that the school records presented by the prosecution were not properly documented in accordance with the Juvenile Justice Rules. The bench also pointed out discrepancies in the age stated by the informant mother (witness-1).
Notably, in the FIR, the mother had stated the age as 18-1/2 years. The court also considered the conduct of the victim (witness-2), as she had admitted in her statement that she had voluntarily left her home and travelled with the appellant by public transport to Gorakhpur and then to Bengaluru.
The court noted that despite travelling in public transport, including government buses and trains, she did not raise any objection at any point. She lived with the appellant for six months in an area of Bengaluru with many houses and had consensual physical relations with him. She only contacted her family after the appellant dropped her back at Shikarpur Crossing on August 6, 2021.
In this background, the High Court held that the conviction under Sections 363 and 366 of the IPC was wholly unjustified in law, as the victim was an adult and had eloped of her own free will.
Regarding the rape charges and the POCSO Act, the High Court observed that if the victim was an adult, then convicting the appellant under Section 6 of the POCSO Act was also improper. The conviction under Section 376 of the IPC was also not justified, as the victim was an adult and had consensual relations with the appellant for six months.
The High Court further opined that the conviction under Section 323 of the IPC was improper because the act of pushing the victim was attributed to the appellant’s family members, not the appellant himself. (ANI)
