- (1.) The appellants, eight in number, were brought to trial for offences punishable under Sections 376 (2g), 323 and 354 of the Indian Penal Code. The trial court on a consideration of the evidence acquitted the appellants for the offence punishable under Section 354 but convicted A1 to A3 under Section 376(2g) and imposed a sentence of 10 years' rigorous imprisonment whereas a fine of '1,000/- was levied for the offence punishable under Section 323 IPC on all the eight accused. An appeal was thereafter taken to the High Court and the High Court reduced the sentence awarded to A1 to A3 from ten years to seven years rigorous imprisonment and with this modification in the order of the trial court, dismissed the appeal. It is in this background the present appeal has come before us for consideration after the grant of special leave.
(2.) The facts of the case are as under: 2.1 At about 6:00a.m. on the 22nd of March, 1986 the victim P.W. 1, left her village for village Pidana to sell milk. As she was on her way she wa accosted by A1 to A3 who were coming from the opposite direction. They abused P.W. 1 and beat her thereafter. They also took her to the nearby field of one Chintalu and committed rape on her. In the meantime, A4 to A8 also came there and pointed out that it was not sufficient punishment for her to be raped but she should also be given a severe beating to teach her a lesson. All the accused thereupon beat her still further. The cries of the victim attracted some of the villagers who were closeby and on reaching there they found that her clothes had been torn and that she was in a traumatised state. The villagers took her to her village where she narrated the incident to her co-villagers and on their advice made her way to the police station at about 8:30p.m. and lodged a report with the Sub Inspector alleging the facts as given above. The investigating officer then visited the scene of occurrence and seized broken pieces of glass bangles in the presence of witnesses. He also arrested the accused and seized the clothes they had been wearing at the time of the incident and also sent A1 to A3 for their medical examination. 2.2 On the completion of the investigation, a charge sheet was, accordingly, filed against the eight accused for offences punishable under Section 376(2g), 114, 354 and 323 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code and they were committed for trial to the Court of Sessions and were, accordingly, charged and tried for the aforesaid offences with the results already mentioned above.
(3.) Mr. Guntur Prabhakar, the learned counsel for the appellants, has raised several arguments before us during the course of hearing. He has first pointed out that but for the self-serving evidence of P.W. 1, the complainant who as also the victim of rape, there was no independent evidence with respect to the involvement of the appellants. He has also pointed out that the medical evidence did not indicate the commission of rape more particularly, as these injuries were no on the back of the victim. It has also been urged that as the FIR had been lodged belatedly the prosecution story had been created in suspicious circumstances.;