Passing the order in the rape case Delhi High Court also observed, "In a patriarchal setup, which is still very much predominant in our country, such matters are either not reported at all or reported when it is beyond the tolerance of the victim". The Delhi High Court on Tuesday held a man guilty of “repeatedly raping” his daughter for more than two years and reversed a 2019 trial court decision which acquitted him of all charges on account of delay in registration of the FIR.
The trial court passed the order in June 2019 following the registration of the First Information Report in 2013 in the rape case, in which the prosecution stated the girl was “hardly 10 years old when she was sexually assaulted for the first time”. A division bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Manoj Jain allowed appeals by the State as well as the victim along with her mother and brother against the acquittal, after noting that it was dealing with a matter where a “daughter” had been raped by her father “inside her own house, not once but repeatedly”. “The wrongdoer was not any outsider or stranger. The victim must have thought that she would find a monastery in the lap of her father. Little did she realise that he was rather a “monster”. Unfortunately, neither she nor her mother could muster enough courage and report the incident to the police. Had they immediately rushed to the police, the victim might have been saved from perpetual trauma,” the bench observed. The bench held the man was guilty of offences under Sections 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act and sections 506 (criminal intimidation) and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The bench listed the matter on May 24 for arguments on the sentence. In its order, the bench it was persuaded to hold that the testimony of the victim inspired “full confidence” and there was no reason whatsoever to “suspect or distrust her”. “It seems that (the) learned Trial Court got swayed because of delay in reporting the matter. (The) Learned Trial Court also gave unwarranted weightage to the contradictions, which were superficial in nature. The substance of the testimony of all three witnesses appears to have (a) “ring of truth‟ as they all have corroborated one another. We also do not find any reason to hold that it was a motivated or planted case. Moreover, we are not inclined to hold that merely because there were minor quarrels between the respondent and his wife, the victim would churn out a story claiming that she was being sexually assaulted for the last two years,” the bench observed. The bench said the victim said she told her mother about the sexual assault, who eventually questioned her husband “but she was snubbed by him”.
“It is not difficult to understand the dilemma of such (a) mother as well. Though she was conscious of the sexual assault upon her daughter but must be in a fix as the perpetrator was her husband. She reasoned with him but to no avail… In a patriarchal set-up, which is still very much predominant in our country, such matters are either not reported at all or reported when it is beyond the tolerance of the victim. Here, the victim did not see any ray of hope as her father, despite being questioned, did not mend his ways and scolded not only his wife but also the victim, and in such a peculiar situation, the victim kept on tolerating such sexual assault for approximately two years,” said the bench. The court said it “strongly” felt and believed that the incident of the father beating up her mother and brother acted as a catalyst and acted as a “saturation point” for the victim and her family and therefore the delay could not be said to be fatal.
