3 min readNew DelhiJun 28, 2023 09:54 AM IST
First published on: Jun 28, 2023 at 09:54 AM IST
While modifying the jail term of two men convicted by a trial court for the rape of a Nigerian woman from 30 years to 20 years, the Delhi High Court Monday held that for the offence of rape, it is sufficient to prove penetration.
A division bench of Justice Mukta Gupta and Justice Poonam A Bamba, in its June 26 order, upheld the conviction of two men who had appealed against the trial court’s 2015 verdict convicting and sentencing them to 30 years in jail for kidnapping and raping the woman.
One of the grounds on which the woman’s testimony was assailed was that despite her claim that the men raped her, the DNA analysis report did not support the claim.
The bench held, “However, absence of semen which could on DNA analysis account for the alleles of the two appellants does not discredit the version of the prosecutrix that she was raped by the two appellants one after another. For an offence of rape, it is sufficient to prove that there was penetration”.
After considering the evidence, the bench said the woman’s version was not only “wholly reliable” but was also supported by other facts and circumstances which had lent further “assurance to her version”.
The court, however, modified the order on sentence from 30 years to 20 years after noting that one of the men was unmarried while the other had to look after his children and parents and that the possibility of their reformation could not be ruled out.
According to the prosecution, the woman was returning from a friend’s party at the District Centre in Janakpuri on the intervening night of June 18-19, 2014. While she was looking for an auto, a car stopped near her. The two men abducted her and took her to the house of the sister of one of them, where they both raped her. After committing the crime, they put her back into the car and dumped her near a metro pillar while taking away her bag having her mobile phone, as per the prosecution.
The men had also argued that they had been falsely implicated due to mistaken identity. After considering the woman’s testimony, the high court remarked, “No motive can be attributed to the prosecutrix to falsely implicate the appellants.”
Considering the woman’s deposition, the high court said it was evident that she was kidnapped by the two men at around 11 pm when she was looking for an autorickshaw.
“She was pulled inside the car, and thus, she would not have noted the car number and could not have identified the car as it would have taken a few seconds or few minutes for the kidnappers to have kidnapped the prosecutrix, giving her no time to see the car number or details of the car. Further, while taking the route to the place where she was raped at night, it would have been difficult for a person who is not an ordinary resident to identify the roads, which is further compounded by the fact that as per the prosecutrix, her head was bowed down in the car so that nobody could see her,” the court noted.
After considering the evidence, the bench said the woman’s version was not only “wholly reliable” but was also supported by other facts and circumstances which had lent further “assurance to her version”.
(File) 
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