IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD MONDAY, THE THIRTYFIRST DAY OF OCTOBER TWO THOUSAND AND ELEVEN HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD Criminal Appeal No.602 of 2008 Between: The State represented by the Public Prosecutor, High Court of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad .. Appellant AND Boya Pullaiah .. Respondent JUDGMENT: The appeal is by the State represented by the learned Public Prosecutor against the acquittal of the accused in S.C.No.418 of 2002 on the file of I Additional Sessions Judge, Ananthapur, by the judgment dated 19-07-2006. The factual background for the appeal is that K. Mahalakshmi, aged 18 years, is a member of Scheduled Caste and unmarried. During her visits to the land of the accused as farm labourer, she developed intimacy with him due to false promise of marriage stating that his wife was sick. The sexual intercourse between them resulted in the pregnancy of Mahalakshmi and on 02-07-1999 at the instance of Boya Rama Chandra, an associate of the accused, Mahalakshmi left her parents house, but the accused took her to Nemillapalli promising to come back to marry her. When the accused did not return, Mahalakshmi informed her parents about the deceit and the village elders convened a panchayat on the compliant of the parents of Mahalakshmi. The parents of the accused agreed to marry Mahalaxmi with the accused and later resiled and hence, Mahalakshmi gave a report to Pamidi police, which was registered as Crime No.39 of 1999. The accused was arrested by the Sub- Inspector of Police and sent for remand. Thus, the accused was alleged to have committed the offences punishable under Section 417 of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 3 (1) (xii) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (for short “the Act”). The Judicial First Class Magistrate, Gooty took cognizance of the offences and furnished copies of documents to the accused on his entering appearance. The learned Magistrate committed the case to the Court of Session, which made it over to the trial Court. The trial Court framed a charge under Section 3 (1) (xii) of the Act and Section 417 of the Indian Penal Code against the accused for which he pleaded not guilty. PWs.1 to 8 were examined and Exs.P.1 to P.8 and D.1 were marked during trial and the accused denied the incriminating circumstances appearing in the evidence against him when he was examined under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. No defence evidence has been produced. The trial Court rendered the impugned judgment noting that PW.1 was fully aware of the family matters of the accused and admitted that she knew that the accused was a married person. PW.1 also admitted during cross-examination that the wife of the accused also used to participate in the field work along with them and the same is not consistent with the alleged sickness of the wife of the accused. PW.1 admitted that she did not inform anybody about the embarrassment caused by the accused and her agreeing to have sexual intercourse with him after one month after joining cooli work. The trial Court also referred to the admission of PW.1 of having sexual intercourse with the accused in a secret place whenever she attended cooli work and that she had sexual intercourse for a period of six months, while she became pregnant after three months. The trial Court also noted that it was unnatural that her family members did not notice the changes in the person in the meanwhile and the trial Court also referred to the peculiar statement by PW.1 that she does not know what happened to her foetus. As PW.1 should have either suffered an abortion or given birth to a child, the claims of PW.1 were considered to be indicating her going to any extent in speaking falsehood. The trial Court further noted that the drafting of complaint given by PW.1 to the police by a stranger could not be believed and at least PW.1 would have taken the help of Panchayatdars to draft the report, if the allegations of the prosecution were true. The trial Court further considered that PW.1 herself did not speak about any dominating position of the accused so as to dominate her will, but for which she would not have agreed for a sexual intercourse. PW.1 was noted to have never referred to any threats by the accused in this regard and it is not as though PW.1 was permanently employed with the accused. The trial Court observed that she would have engaged herself as a coolie with any other landlord. Under the circumstances, the trial Court concluded that the offences were not made out and acquitted the accused. The State filed the present appeal through the learned Public Prosecutor contending that necessary ingredients to prove the alleged offences have been made out and the decisions cited by the prosecution could have been straight away accepted to act upon the evidence of PW.1. The appellant, therefore, desired the impugned judgment to be reversed. Heard Sri Rudresh Deshpande, learned counsel representing the learned Public Prosecutor and Sri N. Aswarthanarayana, learned counsel appearing for the respondent- accused. The point for consideration is whether the prosecution proved the guilt of the accused for the offences punishable under Section 417 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 3 (1) (xii) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989? The two precedents cited in the impugned judgment from this Court illuminate the manner in which the facts have to be appreciated. In Suram Kiran Kumar Reddy and others v. State of A.P. and another[1], the learned Judge was of the opinion on the facts of the case before His Lordship that the conduct of the accused in promising to marry the victim and spending nights with her in hotels, making her believe that she would become his wife and after satisfying his sexual desire, refusing to marry her would definitely cause damage or harm in the mind or body of the victim and inducement, prima facie, has to be taken as intentional covered by second type of cases mentioned in Section 415 IPC. That was a case where the victim and the accused fell in love with each other, decided to marry and thereafter started spending nights in hotels and moving as if they were husband and wife, it was the subsequent refusal by the accused that resulted in the complaint to the police and the prosecution. In Surapathi Laxmana Rao v. State of A.P., represented by Public Prosecutor[2], another learned Judge of this Court was dealing with a case of the victim and the accused loving each other and cohabitating for nearly three years. The victim got a pregnancy aborted in 1995-96, while the promise to marry was stated to be in 1998. The learned Judge, with reference to the precedents on the aspect, found that the consent of the victim for sexual intercourse was not because of the accused promising to marry her and hence, the accused cannot be considered to have committed an offence punishable under Section 417 of the Indian Penal Code. If a full grown girl consents to an act of sexual intercourse on a promise of marriage and continues to indulge in such activity until she becomes pregnant, it was considered to be an act of promiscuity on her part and not an act induced by any misconception of fact by the precedents referred to by the learned Judge. Applying the principles to the facts of the present case, it is seen that the victim and her family and the accused and her family are residents of the same village and PW.1 knew fully well that the accused was a married person. The claim that the accused promised to marry her on the pretext of his wife being sick is falsified by the very admission of PW.1 that the wife of the accused and the accused were also working along with them in the field while carrying on agricultural operations. The capacity of the accused’s wife to so work may be inconsistent with her alleged sickness or failure to provide satisfactory marital life to the accused and when the accused was allegedly making indecent suggestions and harassing PW.1 to marry him for long, PW.1 admittedly never complained to anybody including her parents. The admitted fact that on all days of her attending to the cooli work, she was having sexual intercourse with the accused in a secret place and that she carried on such activity for a period of six months even after she became pregnant after three months shows that the alleged victim was a consenting party in the entire episode not due to any misrepresentation or misleading statements from the accused, but due to her own willingness to have such relationship with the accused. The facts not being noticed by the parents of PW.1 is also quite unnatural as pointed out in detail by the trial Court and in the factual background above stated, the self-serving and interested claims of PW.1 naturally would require specific corroboration from independent circumstances arising out of the evidence on record before treating the same as proved beyond reasonable doubt against the accused. Even assuming that the evidence of the victim alone could have been the basis for any conviction, such evidence of the victim should be such as would inspire confidence in a judicial mind of its absolute truth and credibility, which cannot be considered to exist in the present case. PW.2, the father of PW.1, had knowledge, according to his evidence, of the entire episode only after the return of PW.1 after missing for two days and though he claimed to have reported to the elders, who conducted a panchayat, none of the elders stood examined by the prosecution in their evidence. PWs.3 to 6 turned hostile and denied conducting any panchayat involving of these parties. PWs.3 to 6 were not shown to be having any strong motives or reasons to resort to falsehood in favour of the accused and the only other evidence left is that of the medical officer and the investigating officer as PWs.7 and 8. The evidence of PW.7 about pregnancy of PW.1 is of no significance as it is not the event of pregnancy that is in dispute, but the circumstances under which she became pregnant that are in question. PW.8, the investigating officer, only spoke about his registering the crime and recording statements of the witnesses during the investigation and his claims are no direct evidence to provide any circumstantial corroboration to the claims of PW.1. When the victim and the accused had sexual intimacy for more than six months voluntarily on their own, irrespective of any other consideration, the same could not have been considered either to be cheating or to be an offence under Section 3 (1) (xii) of the special statute and when PW.1 herself had never stated about any vitiating factors influencing her consent to have sexual intercourse with the accused, the offence under Section 3 (1) (xii) of the special statute also could not have been considered to have been made out and under the circumstances, there are no strong and compelling reasons to deviate from the acquittal of the accused by the trial Court. In the result, the Criminal Appeal should fail and is accordingly dismissed. _____________________ G. BHAVANI PRASAD, J Date: 31-10-2011 Ksn [1] 2002 (6) ALT 565 [2] 2004 (1) ALT (Crl.) 251 (A.P.)