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Legal Case Shots

Court judgements broken down into the case type, how the decision played out, and the lesson worth remembering, with the full judgement available as a PDF.

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What is Legal Case Shots?+

Legal Case Shots is a searchable database of Supreme Court of India judgments, each broken down into the case type, the court's key holding, and a practical lesson learnt, with the full judgment available as a PDF for citation or deeper reading.

Criminal LawSupreme Court of India

Raju @ Nirpendra Singh v. The State of Madhya Pradesh

Criminal Appeal · 2025 INSC 392Decided 27 Feb 2025
Crl.A. No.-001172-001172 - 2014 (with connected Criminal Appeal Nos. 1173/2014 and 2575/2014)
Justice Vikram Nath · Justice Sanjay Karol

Background

A 17-year-old girl living with her paternal aunt was lured away in 2005 by one accused on the pretext of a job opportunity, then handed between several men - including the appellant, Raju - across multiple towns (Rewa, Sidhi, Allahabad, and near Delhi) over a period of about two months, during which she was repeatedly gang-raped. She eventually managed to reach a police station and got the men arrested after a report about the kidnapping. The trial court and the Madhya Pradesh High Court both convicted the accused, including Raju, and the accused appealed to the Supreme Court arguing she had consented and pointing to a delay in filing the police complaint.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that since dental and school records, along with her guardian's testimony, established the victim was under 18 at the time, the question of her "consent" became legally irrelevant because the law treats such intercourse as statutory rape. The Court also rejected the argument that her being "accustomed to sexual intercourse" or lack of physical injury suggested consent, calling this an outdated and victim-shaming line of reasoning, and held that a girl held captive under threat for two months cannot meaningfully be said to have consented. It also rejected the argument about delay in filing the FIR, noting the delay was because she was held captive, and upheld the conviction and sentence in full, directing the appellants to surrender within eight weeks to serve their remaining sentence.

Lesson Learnt

When a victim is proven to be a minor, her apparent "consent" or lack of visible injuries provides no legal defence to a rape or kidnapping charge, and a long delay in reporting the crime is fully excusable when the victim was being held captive by the accused.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)
Raju @ Nirpendra Singh v. The State of Madhya Pradesh – Legal Case Shots | LegalAware