More than 28 years after a man from south Mumbai was accused of raping an “adolescent” domestic help & fourteen years after the Trial Court delivered a guilty verdict, the High Court of Bombay has enhanced the original 3 years’ rigorous imprisonment to 7 years.
The Court said that “A sentence should be proportionate to gravity of the offence. Social position of the accused is totally irrelevant".
The High Court bench of Justice Sadhana Jadhav and Justice N J Jamadar directed the man to pay a fine of Rs 1.1 lakh instead of the Rs 10,000 imposed by the sessions court in 2006. The bench said Rs 1 lakh would be paid as compensation to the survivor. “Once the court finds the evidence of the victim to be trustworthy, conviction follows,” the HC said. “Passage of time will not be a justifiable reason to take a lenient view. Courts can’t be oblivious of the impact of such a heinous offence.”
The man had challenged his conviction, & the state had challenged the “meagre sentence” that was fewer than 7 years of rigorous imprisonment, the minimum under the law existing at the time, & sought its enhancement.
As the man was out on bail, the High Court said his bail bond stood cancelled & directed him earlier this month to surrender by Jan 4.
It said rape was a heinous offence, one which could not be viewed with any leniency.
the Bench stated that “The sexual harassment of a woman at a place where she is working to earn her livelihood is a disgrace meted out to her at the hands of the abuser, which needs to be deprecated & set right".
The HC noted that in case of handing out of a lesser punishment than the minimum, the trial court has to give special & adequate reasons. In this case, the high court found that the sessions judge had assigned no such special reasons.
The man is now 47 years old. His counsel Girish Kulkarni argued that he was innocent & the girl had offered no plausible explanation for “inordinate delay in lodging the FIR”. The HC said she was “almost kept in confinement & was not allowed to communicate with anyone”.
The HC held that false implication is a “lame defence” taken by the accused without any effort to “probablise it”. “Rape tantamounts to a serious blow to the supreme honour & dignity of a woman,” it said. “It is a violation of human rights.” It said it is not just a physical injury but “an injury to her womanhood”
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