Rape case: Man gets justice from Delhi HC 10 months after his death

New Delhi: An erroneous approach of the trial court led to "miscarriage of justice" for a man convicted of allegedly raping his minor daughter 17 years ago, but justice was finally delivered to him when the Delhi High Court acquitted him on Wednesday

10 months after he died while maintaining his innocence until the end

The high court noted that neither the probe nor the trial was fair in the case, lodged following a complaint by his daughter, which resulted in him being sentenced to 10 years in jail.

Justice R K Gauba said the accused "had been crying foul from day one" by claiming that some boy had abducted and seduced his daughter, who was found to be pregnant when the FIR of rape was lodged in January 1996, but the investigating agency and the trial

court paid no heed to his contentions.

The father had asked for a DNA test of the foetus by taking samples from the boy in question as well, but the police did not listen and the trial court did not issue any directions for such an investigation, the high court noted.

"The investigation was clearly one-sided. At this distance in time, this court can only deplore the inaction on the part of all concerned. In the considered view of this court, there are many a fact and circumstance which have unfortunately been glossed over by the trial court but which render the account given by the prosecutrix to be wholly improbable and unreliable.

"Additionally, this court is of the view that neither the investigating agency nor the trial court were fair to the appellant at any stage of the process, this also vitiating the result of the probe and the trial," the high court said in its judgement acquitting the man, who died in February this year.

His wife had continued with the appeal.

The high court said that the prosecution and the trial court picked out "easy solutions" and the need for a deeper probe, as demanded by the man right from the start, was given a go-by.

"The defence evidence, particularly of the close members of the family was discarded. It is sad to note that the trial judge blindly accepted the prosecution story without going into the aspects which render it highly improbable, virtually impossible.

"The erroneous approach of the trial court has led to serious miscarriage of justice in the present case unreasonably holding the biological father of raping his own daughter in the teeth of loaded circumstances showing her to be of wayward ways and possibly in liaison with a male acquaintance," it said.

It also noted that the kidnapping FIR lodged by the father, after the then 16-year-old girl went missing, was closed without any probe after she lodged a complaint

that he had been raping her since 1991.

Referring to the facts narrated by the girl before the trial court, the high court observed that "there was no inhibition" on the girl to report the matter and since according to her the rape began from 1991, nothing stopped her from communicating it to her mother, her siblings or other elders in the family.