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Manoj Mishra @ Chhotkau v. The State of Uttar Pradesh

Criminal Appeal · 2021 INSC 640Decided 8 Oct 2021
Criminal Appeal No. 1167 of 2021
Justice M.R. Shah · Justice A.S. Bopanna

Background

The appellant was one of four men accused of enticing away a 14-year-old girl and was convicted by the trial court, and later the Allahabad High Court, of gang rape under Section 376-D IPC, kidnapping, and offences under the POCSO Act, after the girl became pregnant. The appellant challenged his conviction before the Supreme Court, questioning the reliability of the evidence and the applicability of the gang-rape charge.

Decision Breakdown

The Court found the victim's testimony, corroborated by medical evidence of her pregnancy, to be credible and sufficient to establish that the appellant had raped her, but found no convincing evidence that the other accused had participated in or aided the actual act of rape, so the gang-rape charge under Section 376-D could not be sustained. It therefore converted his conviction from Section 376-D (gang rape) to plain Section 376 (rape), set aside a separate conviction under Section 506 IPC (criminal intimidation) for lack of supporting evidence, but upheld the kidnapping and POCSO convictions. Since the appellant had already been in custody for more than 8 years, longer than the reduced sentence, he was ordered released on payment of the fine.

Lesson Learnt

A conviction for "gang rape" requires proof that multiple accused actually participated in or shared a common intention to commit the sexual assault: mere participation in enticing or helping arrange the victim's abduction is not enough to convict everyone involved of gang rape.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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