Gurugram: Invoking the legal canon, “Fouler the crime, higher the proof,” the Punjab and Haryana High Court acquitted a woman who spent over two decades under the shadow of conviction for criminal conspiracy in a rape case. Mere suspicion of her presence, the court held, cannot substitute for evidence of a prior agreement to commit a crime.
Justice Rupinderjit Chahal, pronouncing the judgment on 28 April, set aside the conviction of the appellant recorded by the sessions judge of Yamuna Nagar at Jagadhri in April 2004, under Section 376, read with Section 120-B IPC—rape and criminal conspiracy.
The woman had been sentenced to seven years of rigorous imprisonment.
The co-accused, Sudhir Kumar alias Titu, died during the pendency of an appeal in May 2019, following which proceedings against him stood abated.
The prosecution’s case, registered on 9 January 2002, was that the appellant arrived at the victim’s house roughly at 4 am and took her along, ostensibly to ease herself, but then asked her to check whether Sudhir Kumar was inside a nearby room. When the victim entered the room, Sudhir Kumar allegedly brandished a knife, forced her onto the bed, and raped her. The victim’s screams attracted her mother, and upon seeing her, Sudhir Kumar allegedly scaled a boundary wall and fled.
The case was registered after the victim’s brother returned home and was told of the incident.
The court found that the appellant’s role was limited to accompanying the victim and asking her to check whether the co-accused was in the room. The circumstance, the court held, was by itself entirely innocuous and did not indicate any knowledge of a criminal design.
The court noted that during cross-examination, the victim admitted she did not know whether the appellant remained outside the room or left altogether while the rape was ongoing.
The court maintained that her admission created a serious gap in the prosecution’s case and severed any link between the appellant and the alleged occurrence.
The court also found a complete absence of any evidence of prior communication, planning, or coordination between the appellant and Sudhir Kumar.
The trial court, the high court observed, had drawn an inference of conspiracy from the mere presence of the appellant. It is a course of reasoning that the law does not permit, it held.
Relying on the Supreme Court’s judgments in CBI vs K. Narayana Rao (2012) and Parveen @ Sonu vs State of Haryana (2022), Justice Chahal held that a conviction under Section 120-B IPC cannot rest on suspicion and surmise.
The prosecution must establish a prior meeting of minds through evidence, direct or circumstantial, forming a complete and unbroken chain that admits of no other reasonable explanation. The court, therefore, acquitted the appellant by extending her the benefit of the doubt and directed that her bail bonds, if any, stand discharged.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)