S.P.S. Rathore v. C.B.I.
Background
The appellant, a senior Indian Police Service officer who also headed a tennis association in Panchkula, was accused of molesting a 15-year-old tennis player in his office in August 1990. A friend of the girl witnessed the act. The girl and her family faced retaliation (including her expulsion from the tennis academy) after they complained, and she died by suicide in December 1993. After years of delay and litigation over whether the case could even be investigated, a CBI trial eventually convicted the appellant under Section 354 IPC; sentence was later enhanced on appeal to one and a half years' imprisonment, and the Punjab and Haryana High Court upheld the conviction and sentence in revision.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court upheld the conviction, relying principally on the consistent, unshaken eyewitness testimony of the girl's friend, who directly witnessed the molestation. It rejected the appellant's arguments that the case was fabricated out of institutional rivalry, that the key memorandum of complaint bore a forged signature of the girl (holding that direct eyewitness identification of her signature outweighed inconclusive handwriting-expert opinion), and that the delay in reporting the incident to police was suspicious (holding the delay was explainable given the social stigma victims faced, especially against a powerful police officer). The Court also held that non-examination of some peripheral witnesses did not undermine the prosecution's case where the core eyewitness testimony was credible. However, considering the appellant's advanced age and poor health by the time of the appeal, the Court reduced his sentence to the period he had already served while affirming the conviction itself.
Lesson Learnt
A victim's delay in reporting a sexual offence, particularly where the accused holds power over the victim or her family, does not by itself discredit the complaint; courts will look at the social and practical reasons for the delay. A single credible eyewitness is enough to sustain a conviction even without physical or other corroborating evidence, and minor investigative gaps (missing peripheral witnesses, contested handwriting) will not defeat a case built on consistent direct testimony.