Rape destroys personality of survivor, causes lifelong trauma: Patna High Court upholds conviction of man who raped minor daughters

Sexual assault on a young girl damages her personality and leaves the survivor battling lifelong trauma, the Patna High Court recently observed while upholding the conviction and life term of a man who had raped his two minor daughters from 2007 to 2013 [F vs State of Bihar].A division bench of Justices Anant Badar and Rajesh Kumar Verma said that rape causes not only physical but also emotional and psychological trauma to the survivor. "It hardly needs to be mentioned that rape is a ghastly act which leaves the victim shattered for the life as it causes not only physical but emotional and psychological trauma to the victim. Sexual activities with young girls of immature age have a traumatic effect on them, which persists throughout their life and often destruct whole personality of the victim," the Court said.Pertinently, the Court while referring to the Supreme Court verdict in Bharwada Bhoginbhai Hirjibhai v. State of Gujarat noted that the top court has held that rarely a girl or woman in India makes a false allegation of sexual assault."A girl or a woman in the tradition bound non-permissive society of India would be extremely reluctant even to admit that any incident which is likely to reflect on her chastity had ever occurred. Such girl would be conscious of the danger of being ostracized by the society or being looked down by the society including her relatives etc," the Court observed said, rejecting the argument that the girls falsely implicated their father..As per the prosecution case, the man's wife had died by suicide on November 14, 2007 due to the frequent quarrels between her and the appellant. Soon after her death, the accused started sexually assaulting his elder daughter, who was a minor at that time. The sexual abuse became a routine for the girl and since the appellant was her father, she didn't complain about him to anyone.When the man started abusing his younger daughter too, the elder daughter informed the same to their maternal aunt. The accused, however, claimed that the aunt was forcing him to marry her and on his refusal, she had tutored the girls to depose against him.However, the girls mustered courage on July 30, 2013 and lodged a First Information Report (FIR) against him under charges of rape (376) under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and relevant provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act..The bench noted that the testimony of the two victims inspired confidence and was corroborated by other relevant evidence."It hardly needs to be mentioned that rape is a ghastly act which leaves the victim shattered for the life as it causes not only physical but emotional and psychological trauma to the victim. Sexual activities with young girls of immature age have a traumatic effect on them, which persists throughout their life and often destruct whole personality of the victim," the Court observed in the judgment pronounced on July 25..Stressing on the importance of properly appreciating the testimony of a rape victim, the bench reiterated that the victim of a sexual assault is not an accomplice, but a victim of lust of another person."Her evidence stands at a higher pedestal than that of an injured witness. Evidence of victim of rape case is required to receive same weight as is attached to evidence of an injured witness. If totality of circumstances emerging on record discloses that the victim of such crime does not have any motive to falsely implicate the accused, then, it is not required to seek corroboration to her evidence and the Court generally needs to accept her evidence," the bench said.While dealing with cases of sexual assault on females of tender ages, the Court is expected to shoulder great responsibility and is required to deal with such cases sensibly, the Court opined."Broader probabilities of the prosecution case are required to be examined in such crimes and the Court is not expected to get swayed by minor contradictions or insignificant discrepancies in evidence of prosecution which does not go to the core of the prosecution case," the bench added, while upholding the man's conviction and life sentence..Advocates Vikram Deo Singh, Jitendra Prasad Singh and Shankar Kumar appeared for the appellant.Additional Public Prosecutor Abhimanyu Sharma represented the State..[Read Judgment]