Bombay High Court upholds life imprisonment of man who raped his own daughter

The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court recently upheld the conviction and life sentence of a 54-year-old man who raped his own 12-year-old daughter [X vs State of Maharashtra]..A division bench of Justices Vibha Kankanwadi and Abhay Waghwase said that the first information report (FIR) was not the outcome of false implication at the behest of the child's mother. Ravishing one's own daughter is a heinous crime and the conviction awarded is perfectly legal, the bench opined.The Court was seized of a criminal appeal filed by a convict, challenging an April 2016 order of a special court which had convicted him for raping his minor daughter.The bench noted from the testimony of the survivor that on October 11, 2014, the appellant had a fight with his wife and thereafter, took the survivor and her siblings to his native place. However, while on their way to his native place, he, in an inebriated state, took the three children to a nearby field and committed rape on the minor girl. On the morning the next day, at the insistence of the children, the appellant brought them back to their mother but she was not at home. The survivor then went to school but after returning home from school, narrated the ordeal to her mother."We do not find the conduct on the part of the prosecutrix unnatural. Unless the comfort is given to the girl, she will not disclose such facts to anybody. That comfort appears to have been given by the mother or after she saw mother, she became comfortable and then she disclosed the incident to her mother," the bench said in its order.The bench noted that since the girl is the daughter of the appellant, she might have been under pressure and thus did not raise any hue and cry at the time of the incident."The psychology of such girls is required to be considered and also the fact that all the girls will not behave in the same fashion in such situation. It depends upon the temperament of the particular person to face a tough situation," the bench observed..The Court rejected the appellant's argument that since he came to know about his wife's 'extra-marital affair', she had forced his daughter to implicate him in a false rape case."Another fact to be noted is that merely because there was quarrel between the husband and wife whether daughter can be asked to level such kind of allegations which will create an impact on her mind throughout her life. The FIR is not the outcome of false implication at the behest of mother and therefore, for ravishing his own daughter which is one of the heinous crime, the conviction awarded is perfectly legal," the bench opined.The mother will not put the daughter in such situation just to take revenge and will not ask the daughter to stand against the father, the bench added. With these observations, the bench dismissed the father's appeal.