Thane, May 31 A man was sentenced to 20 years in jail for raping a 15-year-old girl.
The court of Additional Sessions Judge Parag Sane in Belapur found Govindkumar Harilal Nirmal (24), a vada-pav stall labourer, guilty under IPC Section 376(3) and multiple provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The court also imposed a concurrent 2-year rigorous imprisonment sentence under IPC Section 506 for criminal intimidation.
In July 2019, Nirmal pulled the victim, a Class X student, from a common water tap into his house and raped her twice. As per the prosecution, he put a speaker on full volume to drown out her screams. After she became pregnant, her kin got a case registered in December that year.
The defence claimed the relationship was consensual. However, the court, in its order, said it had no difficulty to act on the testimony of a victim of sexual assault alone to convict an accused where her testimony inspires confidence and is found to be reliable.
Underscoring that a survivor cannot be viewed with suspicion, the court added, "It must not be overlooked that a woman or a girl subjected to sexual assault is not an accomplice to the crime, but is a victim of another person's lust."
Courts cannot cling to a fossil formula and insist upon corroboration if the case strikes the judicial mind as probable, it added.
