india

Updated: Dec 26, 2019 09:21 IST

A 45-year-old woman in Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu district was sent to jail and fined ~ 10,000 for turning hostile in court during the trial of three men accused of raping her daughter.

The woman lodged a case against a man she accused of kidnapping and raping her daughter in 2017. In her statement before a magistrate, the girl accused two more men of raping her. Police arrested the three and filed a charge sheet against them under sections of the Pocso Act and IPC, Shekhawat said.

“During trial, the woman said her daughter was neither kidnapped nor raped...She even claimed that the girl was not a minor when the FIR was registered. She said she is illiterate and didn’t know the contents of the FIR,” the prosecutor said.

The three suspects were acquitted on November 3, and on the request of the prosecution, proceedings under section 193 (false evidence) of the IPC were launched against the woman. On Tuesday, Pocso court judge Sukesh Kumar Jain declared the woman guilty and sent her to jail.

In the ruling, Jain said he had found that in more than 50% of Pocso cases, the complainants turn hostile during the trial. “They negate the statements given in the FIR and those given before magistrates under section 164 of the CrPC [Code of Criminal Procedure],” the judge said.

He said the reason for people turning hostile in Pocso and Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act cases was the stringent punishment prescribed under the laws. “To save oneself from the punishment, the accused reach out-of-court settlements with the complainants,” he said.

Rajasthan has posted a rise in the number of crimes against women and children. According to National Crime Records Bureau data of 2017, the state recorded the second highest number of rape cases in the country at 3,305. According to an affidavit filed by the state government in the Rajasthan High Court on May 28 of this year, 43.3% of rape cases filed in 2018 were false. The affidavit said: “The number of false cases would be even higher if the Pocso Act cases are not included as, under this Act, even a consensual act is an offence”. Activists contest this and say the police close investigations for other reasons even if the complaints are valid.

In sexual offences or offences against women in general, a case is based on the statement of the complainant prima facie, but sometimes powerful people exert pressure on complainants to withdraw the case or turn hostile, lawyer Akhil Chaudhary said.

“The judge adjudicating on such matters needs to consider this fact,” Chaudhary said.