The mere statement of a rape victim is sufficient to hold the accused guilty in a criminal trial, the Supreme Court has held. A Bench of Justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan said a woman victim’s testimony is not to be tested like any other evidence if it is found to be reliable.



“The law that emerges on the issue is to the effect that statement of prosecutrix (victim), if found to be worthy of credence and is reliable, requires no corroboration. The court may convict the accused on the sole testimony of the prosecutrix,” the court said in a recent verdict.



Relying upon the judgments delivered by the apex court in other cases, the Bench added, it is a trite law that a woman, who is the victim of sexual assault, is not an accomplice to the crime but is a victim of another person’s lust.



The prosecutrix stands at a higher pedestal than an injured witness as she suffers from emotional injury. Therefore, her evidence need not be tested with the same amount of suspicion as that of an accomplice. The Indian Evidence Act, 1872, nowhere says that her evidence cannot be accepted unless it is corroborated in material particulars, it said.



If the totality of the circumstances, appearing on the record of the case, disclose that the prosecutrix (victim) does not have a strong motive to falsely involve the person charged, the court should ordinarily have no hesitation in accepting her evidence, the Bench further said.



The apex court declined to interfere with the Delhi High Court’s order awarding five year – less than the minimum – sentence prescribed – after holding Mohd Imran Khan and his friend guilty of raping a minor girl in 1989.



Writing the judgement, Justice Chauhan said, the High Court had taken into consideration several special reasons like the 15-year-old victim herself had accompanied with the accused to reduce the seven-year-jail term awarded to them by the trial court.



“The trial court came to the conclusion that there was no reason to disbelieve the prosecutrix, as no self-respecting girl would level a false charge of rape against anyone by staking her own honour. The evidence of rape stood fully corroborated by the medical evidence,” the apex court noted.



The accused had raised the contention that the victim had accompanied them willingly but this argument failed to come to their aid as she was found to be minor as per her age records.