Summary
The Supreme Court affirmed the High Court’s reversal of acquittal and the ten-year sentence for sexual assault on a child. The child’s later hostile testimony and failure to identify the accused in court did not erase the prompt, proved test identification when considered with the medical and serological evidence. Test identification was not treated as substantive evidence sufficient by itself. The omission to put the serological report to the accused under section 313 CrPC caused no prejudice on this record. The Court declined to direct prosecution of the child for false evidence.
Issues
- Whether the proved test identification and other evidence sustained conviction despite hostile testimony and absence of dock identification.
- Whether the serological report was usable without formal exhibition or examination of its author.
- Whether the section 313 omission required interference and whether false-evidence proceedings should be directed.
Provisions considered
- Section 45, Indian Evidence Act, 1872The Court treated the serologist’s report as admissible expert opinion and, in this case, did not require formal exhibition or oral proof by its author. (¶ 11)
Held
- The medical evidence and other proved material established sexual assault, notwithstanding the later alternative account. The prompt identification parade was proved by the Executive Magistrate and was not substantively challenged. (¶¶ 6, 7)
- Dock identification ordinarily had primacy, and test identification was corroborative rather than substantive evidence sufficient alone. Failure of dock identification was not invariably fatal: the parade identification had to be evaluated cumulatively with the other incriminating evidence in the particular case. (¶¶ 7, 9, 10, 11)
- The hostile testimony did not extinguish the remaining prosecution evidence. Here the prompt identification, medical findings and serological evidence, including the matching blood-group finding relied on by the Court, cumulatively established the appellant’s involvement. (¶¶ 8, 9, 10, 11)
- Failure to put the available serological report to the accused was the trial court’s omission, rather than suppression by the prosecution. The objection was raised for the first time in this Court, and the evidence and circumstances did not disclose prejudice warranting interference. (¶ 12)
- Despite considering false-evidence proceedings, the Court declined to direct prosecution, having regard to the child’s age at the occurrence, the fourteen-year interval and the potential disruption of her later life. The criminal appeal was dismissed. (¶¶ 13, 14)
Result
Appeal dismissed; conviction under the then-applicable section 376(2)(f) IPC, ten years’ rigorous imprisonment and fine left undisturbed. No prosecution for false evidence directed against the child victim.