NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has upheld the 10-year jail term of a man for raping and sodomising a four-year-old girl known to him, observing that perpetrators of sexual offences on innocent children are "psychosocial deviants" who do not deserve any leniency.
Justice C Hari Shankar endorsed the findings of the trial court that there was no reason for the child's mother to wrongly implicate him especially as she regarded him as her brother.
The incident took place in November 2013, after the child's mother performed the 'Bhai Duj' ceremony with the accused.
The high court dismissed the man's appeal against the conviction and sentencing by the trial court in May 2015 and said the decision does not call for any interference.
"Perpetrators of sexual offences on innocent children are psychosocial deviants, who cannot lay any claim to leniency. It is in the order of nature, and is the sacred right of every living being to blossom from infancy, to childhood, to adolescence and, finally, to adulthood. This order of nature is thrown into violent disarray by the sexual predators of children," it said.
It added that the "innocence of the child who had barely savoured the first fragrance of childhood, let alone adolescence, was brutally plundered by the man, the deviancy of his act being augmented by the fact that he chose to sodomise her." The court said the trial court erred in giving lenient sentence to the convict but as the state has not appealed, it was refraining from enhancing the punishment.
It noted that the child's mother had cited the trauma suffered by the victim and the medical treatment administered to her as the reasons for delay in reporting the matter to the police.
The victim's mother filed a complaint with the police on December 28, 2013, alleging that the incident occurred on November 5 when she had gone to Munirka in South Delhi to meet the accused on the occasion of 'Bhai Duj'.
After performing the ceremony, the man told her that his mother had invited them to his house and while the woman and her minor son proceeded to his house, he along with the victim reached late.
On seeing the child in a distressed condition, the woman sought to know the reason and was informed by the victim about the man's actions.
According to the police, the man had taken the child to a secluded place where he raped and sodomised her and also threatened to kill her mother and brother if she disclosed it to anyone.
The man had claimed innocence and said he was falsely implicated in the case by the child's mother.