In Md Quarban vs. The State of Bihar & Anr. (2026), Patna High Court's Division Bench of Justices Rajeev Ranjan Prasad and Soni Shrivastava delivered a 26-page long judgement dated April 6, 2026, wherein, it concluded:"42. All these inconsistencies and conflicting versions of the prosecution case which is apparent from the deposition of the prosecution witness render the prosecution case considerably doubtful. The failure of the prosecution to prove the foundational facts with regard to age and sexual assault makes the entire edifice of the prosecution crumble against the weight of evidence." The judgement was authored by Justice Soni Shrivastava.
Justice Shrivastava added: "43. In view of the aforesaid facts and circumstances and on account of all the foregoing reasons, including the consideration of several missing links and loopholes in the case of the prosecution, we come to a clear finding that the circumstances and evidence on which the conclusion of guilt has to be drawn, has not been fully established and the appellant is entitled to be extended benefit of doubt, inasmuch as, the prosecution hasmiserably failed to prove its case by adducing credible and trustworthy evidence. 44. Thus, in the totality of the facts and circumstances and also taking into account the overall perspective and the entire conspectus, it would be extremely unsafe to sustain the conviction of the appellant, as such, the finding of conviction recorded by the learned Trial Court is not sustainable and requires interference. Accordingly, the impugned judgment of conviction dated 18.03.2023 and the order of sentence dated 22.03.2023 passed by the learned Additional District and Sessions Judge-VI-cum-Special Judge, POCSO Act, Bhagalpur in POCSO Case No.35 of 2020, arising out of Sabour P.S. Case No.361 of 2018, is hereby set aside and the appellant is acquitted of all the charges levelled against him. 45. The appellant, who is said to be in custody, is directed to be released forthwith, if not required in any other case."
The appeal was preferred against the judgment of conviction dated March 18, 2023 and the order of sentence dated March 22, 2023 passed by the Additional District and Sessions Judge-VI-cum-Special Judge, POCSO Act, Bhagalpur in POCSO Case No. 35 of 2020, arising out of Sabour P.S. Case No. 361 of 2018. 3. By the impugned judgment, the appellant has been convicted and was sentenced for the offences punishable under Section 363, IPC for rigorous Imprisonment for seven years along with fine of Rs. 50,000/, Section 341 IPC for simple Imprisonment for one year or fine of Rs. 500/, Section 323 IPC for simple Imprisonment for one year and fine of Rs. 1000/, Section 504 IPC for rigorous imprisonment for 2 years and fine of Rs. 1,000/ and Section 4 of POCSO Act for rigorous imprisonment for 20 years along with fine of Rs. 1 lakh.
The prosecution case based on the written report of the informant alleged that the minor daughter (aged about 14 years) of the informant had gone for her tuition classes 15 days back, but did not return. He frantically searched for his daughter but did not get to know of her whereabouts. When he could not find out anything even from his relatives, he gave the written application on December 28, 2018 before police.
Based on the written application, a Sabour P.S. Case was registered against unknown for the offences punishable under sections 363 and 365 of IPC. After investigation supplementary charge-sheet was submitted against the present appellant under sections 366A, 376, 341, 323, 504, 506, 427/34 of the IPC and section 6/8 of POCSO Act, whereafter cognizance was also taken under these provisions by the Special Court POCSO, Bhagalpur.
The trial Court on August 10, 2021, framed the charges against the appellant under sections 341, 323, 376, 366 A, 427 of IPC and 4 and 8 of POCSO Act and the same were explained to him to which he pleaded not guilty and claimed to be tried. The prosecution in order to substantiate its case examined as many as five witnesses and exhibited some documents on its behalf. The trial court decided the primary issue relating to the minority of the victim and recorded the fact that while the victim’s age was disclosed as 14 years in both the FIR and the statement of the victim under section 164 Cr.P.C, the Magistrate had assessed her age as 15 years. The medical report indicated her age to be between 16 to 18 years. The date of birth of the victim as per her Registration Card in the Bihar School Examination Board was recorded as January 25, 2004. It reached the conclusion that the victim was undoubtedly a minor on the basis of the document.
The trial court has thus concluded that the solitary evidence of the victim itself was sufficient for proving the guilt of the accused and since there are no apparent contradictions in the prosecution evidence to doubt the veracity of the same, the prosecution has been able to prove its case beyond reasonable doubts. However, while holding that the case was proved under sections 323, 341, 376, 504 of the IPC along with section 4 of the POCSO Act and additionally finding the case to be proved under section 363 IPC also (under which no charge was framed), the accused/appellant was acquitted of the charges under Section 427, 506, 366 A of the IPC and Section 8 of the POCSO Act as the same was held to be not proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Justice Shrivastava observed: "28. After having analysed the trend of evidence as disclosed by the victim (PW3), it would be difficult to place her in the category of ‘sterling witness’ whose evidence would be complete and sufficient in itself to base a conviction, as such, the evidence of victim (PW3) must undergo a strict scrutiny through the well-settled legal principles as established by law in a catena of decisions."
She drew on Supreme Court's decision in Rai Sandeep alias Deepu vs. State (NCT of Delhi) reported in (2012) 8 SCC 21, wherein, it said “22. In our considered opinion, the “sterling witness” should be of a very high quality and calibre whose version should, therefore, be unassailable. The court considering the version of such witness should be in a position to accept it for its face value without any hesitation. To test the quality of such a witness, the status of the witness would be immaterial and what would be relevant is the truthfulness of the statement made by such a witness. What would be more relevant would be the consistency of the statement right from the starting point till the end, namely, at the time when the witness makes the initial statement and ultimately before the court. It should be natural and consistent with the case of the prosecution qua the accused. There should not be any prevarication in the version of such a witness. The witness should be in a position to withstand the cross-examination of any length and howsoever strenuous it may be and under no circumstance should give room for any doubt as to the factum of the occurrence, the persons involved, as well as the sequence of it. Such a version should have co-relation with each and every one of other supporting material such as the recoveries made, the weapons used, the manner of offence committed, the scientific evidence and the expert opinion. The said version should consistently match with the version of every other witness. It can even be stated that it should be akin to the test applied in the case of circumstantial evidence where there should not be any missing link in the chain of circumstances to hold the accused guilty of the offence alleged against him. Only if the version of such a witness qualifies the above test as well as all other such similar tests to be applied, can it be held that such a witness can be called as a “sterling witness” whose version can be accepted by the court without any corroboration and based on which the guilty can be punished. To be more precise, the version of the said witness on the core spectrum of the crime should remain intact while all other attendant materials, namely, oral, documentary and material objects should match the said version in material particulars in order to enable the court trying the offence to rely on the core version to sieve the other supporting materials for holding the offender guilty of the charge alleged.”
This view was further reiterated by a 3-Judgebench of the Supreme Court in Nirmal Prem Kumar & Anr. vs. State represented by Inspector of Police, (2024 INSC 193) Cr. Appeal No. 1098 of 2024 disposed off on March 11, 2024.
The High Court's judgment took note of the inordinate delay of 15 days in lodging the FIR.
Justice Shrivastava observed: "This fact compels this court to take a view that there is something more in this case that meets the eye, as no father whose daughter went missing or was kidnapped would wait for fifteen days for lodging an FIR. Further, the medical examination of the victim conducted by the medical officer (PW4) reveals that there was no physical or chemical injury on her body including her private parts and upon pathological investigation no spermatozoa was detected in the vaginal swab, however the urine pregnancy test was found positive. 31. Her age was assessed between 16 to 18 years but no evidence of any recent sexual assault has been noted by the doctor, thereby making it abundantly clear that even the medical report (Ext. P1)does not stand in support of the contentions of the victim. Merely because the pregnancy test was found to be positive, it would not lead us to the irresistible conclusion that the entire prosecution story narrated against the appellant has an element of truth and there could be other reasons, including one of consensual sexual relation, leading to the pregnancy of the victim. 32. The issue of a consensual sexual relation brings us to the crucial question as to whether the victim was actually a minor and whether her age determination was done in consonance with the procedure laid down under Section 94 of Juvenile Justice Act, 2015. With regard to the minority of the victim, the only document which has been brought on record is the Registration Card (Exhibit- P4) issued by the Bihar School Examination Board, wherein her date of birth is recorded as 25.01.2004. This document has been proved and marked as Exhibit P4 by the victim herself and no other evidence has been adduced in support of the said document. Neither the school admission register has been produced nor the headmaster of the concerned school has been brought forward for examination in order to lend support to the case of the victim that she was a minor at the relevant period. Further, the fact that all the witnesses including the I.O., have maintained a curious and suspicious silence on the aspect of age of the alleged rape victim, is very intriguing and raises considerable doubt in the mind of this court with regard to the minority of the victim. None of the victim’s family members i.e. her sister or her father, have mentioned a word about the age of the victim in their deposition made in the Court. The victim too has remained effectively silent on the said aspect and only on recall for recording further examination-in-chief after about 10 months of her cross-examination, she produced the above-mentioned Registration Card which was marked as Exhibit-P4. Such evidence may be
admissible but its evidentiary value, in the entire scenario, gets lost, especially in absence of any supporting evidence and non-examination of the maker of the said document to vouchsafe of the contents thereof. Exhibit-4 did not form part of the charge-sheet and the police papers supplied to the accused."
She added, " Since the determination of age has not been done in accordance with law and there is no other evidence, much less clinching, to establish the minority of the victim, this court would go on to consider the medical evidence whereby the doctor has assessed her age to be between 16 and 18 year
In Ram Suresh Singh versus Prabhat Singh and Another, reported in (2009) 6 SCC 681 and Om Prakash versus the State of Rajasthan and Another, reported in (2012) 5 SCC 201, the Supreme Court took a view that radiological examination for purpose of age determination was not very reliable and there was always a possibility of an error of plus and minus two years.
In Rajak Mohammad vs. H.P, reported in (2018) 9 SCC 248, the court laid down that the age determination on the basis of radiological examination may not be accurate determination and thus sufficient margin on either side has to be allowed. The judgment reads: “9. While it is correct that the age determined on the basis of a radiological examination may not be an accurate determination and sufficient margin either way has to be allowed, yet the totality of the facts stated above read with the report of the radiological examination leaves room for ample doubt with regard to the correct age of the prosecutrix. The benefit of the aforesaid doubt, naturally, must go in favour of the accused.”
In Santosh Prasad Vs. State of Bihar reported in (2020) 3 SCC 443, the Court held that solitary version of prosecutrix in a case under Section 376 of the IPC, was not to be taken as gospel truth in absence of any other supporting or corroborative evidence. It had also considered the factum of delay in lodging of the First Information Report as also the fact that the medical report of the victim did not support the allegations made by her and considering all these facts cumulatively, the accused was acquitted giving him the benefit of doubt.
Justice Shrivastava observed: "40. Similarly, in the present case in view of the fact that the victim has been giving vacillating statements with regard to the manner of occurrence and these inconsistencies in the prosecution’s narrative significantly undermines the credibility of the prosecution version and takes away the veracity of the evidence of the victim. We also take into consideration the fact that there is total want of evidence on record to corroborate the case of the victim and it appears that for the reasons best known to the prosecution, material witnesses who could have shed some light on correct facts have also been withheld. 41. The cloud of doubt upon the entire prosecution case starts form the very inception as the informant (PW2) did not lodge an FIR upto fifteen days of her daughter being allegedly kidnapped which is not a normal phenomenon. Moving further, the factum of non-raising of alarm by victim while being forcibly taken away on a motorcycle points towards a probability of a consensual act with no resistance offered at the end of the victim. The age of the appellant at the relevant period being about 19 years i.e., of the same age group as the victim, further contributes to such a probability. The evidence of both the father and the sister of the victim during trial failed to lend support to the case of the prosecution. PW1, the sister of the victim, rather stands out as she has deposed no incident happened in her presence which is absolutely contradictory to the story as propounded by the victim." Consequently, the Division Bench allowed the appeal.
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