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Prabhu @ Kulandaivelu v. The State of Tamil Nadu

Criminal Appeal · 2018 INSC 826Decided 18 Sept 2018
Criminal Appeal No. 1178 of 2011
Justice R. Banumathi · Justice Indira Banerjee

Background

The appellant was alleged to have had a relationship with the complainant (PW-1) under a false promise of marriage, leading to her pregnancy, and was further accused of forcibly taking her for an abortion against her wishes. The trial court convicted him on multiple counts including rape, cheating, and causing miscarriage without consent. The High Court acquitted him of rape but upheld his conviction for cheating (Section 417 IPC) and for causing miscarriage without consent (Section 313 IPC), which he then challenged before the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court upheld the cheating conviction, finding the complainant's evidence credible that the appellant had induced her into a sexual relationship through a false promise of marriage. However, on the Section 313 IPC charge, the Court examined the evidence of the treating doctor, who testified that the complainant's own consent had been obtained before the pregnancy was medically terminated to save her life, and that she had arrived at the hospital already bleeding with no evidence linking her condition to the appellant. Since the essential ingredient of Section 313 IPC is causing miscarriage without the woman's consent, and that consent was in fact given, the Court held this charge was not established and set aside that part of the conviction. The appeal was allowed in part, and since the appellant had already served about three years in custody, he was ordered released forthwith.

Lesson Learnt

A conviction must rest on evidence actually proving every essential ingredient of the specific offence charged: here, medical evidence of the complainant's own consent to the abortion was enough to overturn that particular conviction, even while a related conviction (cheating) stood on its own separate evidence.

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

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