The Supreme Court has acquitted a man convicted of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl with an intellectual disability, holding that serious gaps in the prosecution evidence left his involvement unproved beyond reasonable doubt.
The bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta found that neither the child nor her cousin could identify the accused during trial. Both stated that his name had been supplied by the child’s mother, who was not an eyewitness to the alleged assault. The Bench also took account of material omissions in the FIR, the unexplained failure to examine a crucial schoolteacher, denial of an effective opportunity to cross-examine medical witnesses, and credible evidence supporting the accused’s plea of alibi.
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The prosecution alleged that the child was sexually assaulted at her residence on May 28, 2015, while her mother was away. According to the mother, she had seen the accused plucking mulberry leaves in the adjoining garden before leaving the house.
The prosecution’s account was that the child subsequently stayed overnight at her cousin’s house and disclosed the alleged assault to her. The cousin reportedly informed the child’s mother the following morning. However, the mother did not initially act on the information because the child did not confirm the accusation when questioned.
The matter was reported to the police on June 8, 2015, after a schoolteacher allegedly informed the mother about a disclosure made by the child. Medical examination followed, and the investigation also obtained a certificate recording that the child had a 40% intellectual disability.
The Special Judge under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, convicted the accused under Section 6 on December 7, 2021. He was sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment and fined ₹1 lakh, with a further five months’ simple imprisonment in default of payment. The Meghalaya High Court dismissed his appeal on March 29, 2022.
The central issue before the Supreme Court was whether the evidence reliably established that the accused was the person responsible for the alleged assault.
The child’s cousin initially testified that she had seen the child and the accused together at the residence. During cross-examination, however, she said that she did not know the accused and could not recognise his face. She also stated that the child’s mother had told her his name.
When re-examined by the prosecutor, the cousin clarified that her earlier statement naming the accused as the man she had seen was incorrect. Despite being asked to look around the courtroom and towards the dock, she could not identify him.
The Supreme Court held that these admissions undermined the foundation of her testimony linking the accused to the occurrence.
The child similarly stated during cross-examination that she had forgotten the alleged offender’s face and could not identify him. She also said that her mother had supplied the accused’s name.
The Bench noted that the prosecution had not asked the child to identify the accused during examination-in-chief. After the defence elicited her inability to identify him, neither the prosecutor nor the presiding officer sought to clarify the difficulty through re-examination. No effort was made to confront her with her earlier statement recorded under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The State argued that the child’s intellectual disability and the passage of time explained her inability to identify the accused during trial. It urged that this difficulty should not discredit her earlier account.
The Supreme Court acknowledged that her disability required latitude while evaluating her testimony. Nevertheless, it found that the identification problem, considered alongside the other evidentiary deficiencies, made the conviction unsafe.
The child’s statement that the Special Public Prosecutor had told her what to say before entering the courtroom also raised a concern about possible tutoring. The Court treated this as an additional circumstance affecting the reliability of her testimony concerning the offender’s identity.
There was also a contradiction about the accused’s relationship with the family. The child described him as her father’s eldest brother, while her mother described a different relationship through marriage. The Bench considered this inconsistency significant in the context of the failed identification.
The Supreme Court separately identified serious procedural defects in the recording of medical evidence.
One medical witness described injuries suggestive of sexual assault. However, the defence lawyer was absent when the witness testified. The accused told the trial court that his lawyer was out of station and would be able to conduct an effective cross-examination.
The trial court neither deferred the cross-examination nor arranged legal aid. The Supreme Court observed that the medical testimony had therefore remained untested because an effective opportunity to challenge it was denied, rather than because the accused had waived that opportunity.
For the other medical witness, the Bench found that the trial court had not even offered the defence an opportunity to cross-examine.
Consequently, the Supreme Court held that the testimony of both medical witnesses could not be read in evidence. It also noted the absence of scientific evidence connecting the accused to the alleged offence.
The State sought to invoke Section 106 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, relying on the mother’s statement that she had seen the accused in the garden while the child was alone inside the house.
The Supreme Court rejected this argument. It explained that the mother had not stated that she saw the accused and the child together. Seeing him plucking leaves nearby did not establish the circumstance of the two having been “last seen together”.
The Court therefore found no basis to shift the burden of proof to the accused under Section 106.
It further noted that the allegation about his presence in the garden did not appear in the FIR, although the prosecution later relied on it as a significant circumstance connecting him to the offence.
The Bench reiterated that an FIR need not contain every detail of an incident. However, omission of an important incriminating circumstance can assume significance when that circumstance later becomes a foundation of the prosecution’s case.
Here, the FIR did not mention either the mother’s alleged sighting of the accused in the garden or the cousin’s alleged disclosure to her on the morning after the incident.
The Court considered these omissions material, particularly because the complaint was lodged several days after the alleged occurrence. It also questioned the mother’s failure to seek prompt police or medical assistance despite allegedly receiving information from her niece.
Referring to Amar Nath Jha v. Nand Kishore Singh and Ram Kumar Pandey v. State of M.P., the Bench explained that material omissions and subsequent improvements must be assessed when determining the credibility of the prosecution version.
The schoolteacher occupied a crucial position in the prosecution’s account because the child’s alleged disclosure to her was said to have prompted the mother to lodge the FIR.
Yet the prosecution did not examine the teacher and offered no explanation for that omission.
The Supreme Court observed that her testimony could have clarified what the child had actually disclosed and helped explain the delay in reporting the matter.
Relying on Takhaji Hiraji v. Thakore Kubersing Chamansing, the Bench distinguished between witnesses whose evidence would merely repeat an already established account and material witnesses capable of resolving a gap at the root of the prosecution case.
In the circumstances before it, the Court drew an adverse inference against the prosecution for failing to produce the teacher.
The accused testified in his defence and examined three additional witnesses to support his claim that he had travelled to another village in connection with a property transaction.
After reviewing the oral and documentary evidence, the Supreme Court found that the defence had presented credible material supporting the alibi.
The Bench held that the trial court and the High Court had brushed aside this evidence without adequate justification. It considered the alibi evidence alongside the weaknesses in the prosecution’s identification and account of events.
The Supreme Court concluded that the cumulative effect of the identification failures, contradictory accounts, material FIR omissions, delay in reporting, non-examination of the teacher and credible defence evidence created serious doubt about the prosecution allegations.
It held that the evidence fell short of the standard required to sustain a criminal conviction and acquitted the accused by giving him the benefit of doubt.
The Court set aside both the trial court’s conviction and sentence and the Meghalaya High Court’s judgment affirming them. It directed that the accused, who was in custody, be released immediately unless required in another case.
The decision rests on the combined deficiencies in the evidence and trial process in this case; the Court’s reasoning does not treat delayed reporting or a child’s inability to identify an accused as an automatic ground for acquittal.
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