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Rajender Prasad Jindal vs. State of NCT of Delhi

Criminal Appeal · 2026:DHC:7370Decided 2 Sept 2026New Delhi Bench
CRL.A. 1056/2024CNR: DLHC010796202024
Justice Chandrasekharan Sudha

Background

A doctor was convicted by a trial court of sexually assaulting a patient at his clinic and sentenced to 7 years' imprisonment, based on the patient's complaint that she was made unconscious by an injection and then assaulted, along with forensic evidence linking him to biological material found on her body and clothing. He appealed the conviction.

Decision Breakdown

The High Court found that the complainant's own statement given to a Magistrate two days after her police complaint directly contradicted her original account: in that statement she said she had felt dizzy on her own, described being "instigated" by other patients into believing something had happened, and explicitly stated "no one has done anything wrong to me." The complainant later told the trial court that this Magistrate statement was true and given voluntarily. Given this fundamental inconsistency between her own sworn statements, and doubts about whether she had actually been given any intoxicating substance, the Court held the prosecution had not proven the charge beyond reasonable doubt despite the forensic evidence, and acquitted the doctor.

Lesson Learnt

Even where scientific evidence appears to support a prosecution's case, a serious, unexplained contradiction between a complainant's own different sworn statements, especially a formal statement made before a Magistrate, can be enough to create reasonable doubt and result in acquittal.

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