CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court on Friday allowed a criminal appeal filed 30 years ago and acquitted a man who was convicted by the court of Additional Session’s Judge, Titlagarh for raping a woman.
The incident occurred in Titlagarh police limits on October 3, 1989. Satrughan Nag was arrested, produced in court during investigation and remanded in judicial custody on October 17, 1989. The trial court had sentenced him to three years rigorous imprisonment on March 17, 1990. He challenged it by way of a criminal appeal in the High Court in the same year.
Justice SK Sahoo held Nag’s conviction for rape ‘is not sustainable in the eye of law’, but convicted him for house trespassing under section 448 of IPC.“In view of the room positions and the surrounding circumstances under which the occurrence stated to have happened, it is evident that the appellant (accused) had entered inside the room of the victim in the night but the victim’s conduct and her late reaction in raising shout probably on the arrival of her sister-in-law make it clear that she was a consenting party and after having been caught red-handed with the appellant in a compromising position inside her bedroom in the night by her sister-in-law, the victim tried to put the entire blame upon the appellant as perpetrator of the crime in order to save her own skin among her family members as well as in her society”, Justice Sahoo observed.
Nag was released on bail by the trial Court on June 2, 1990 on the basis of the order passed by High Court in the criminal appeal on May 25, 1990. “Therefore, the appellant has remained in judicial custody for more than seven months. Keeping in view the fact that more than 31 years have passed since the date of occurrence, I sentence him to undergo imprisonment for the period already undergone by him”, Justice Sahoo said.