BHUBANESWAR: The Nayagarh additional district and sessions judge-cum-children’s court which handed 20 years rigourous imprisonment to the sole accused in the sensational minor girl rape and murder case has observed that the special investigation team’s (SIT) watertight investigation ended in conviction of the child in conflict with law (CCL).
The teen accused was tried as an adult and sentenced to 20 years under various sections of POCSO Act and IPC for committing the heinous crime.
The SIT faced a huge challenge during the investigation as there were no witnesses to the crime committed in Jadupur village on July 14, 2020. Owing to absence of any direct evidence and witnesses, it will be appropriate to ascertain the prosecution’s case essentially hinged upon circumstantial evidence, the court said.
“In such premises, the factual matrix as well as evidence on record are required to be tested on the anvil of law pertaining to circumstantial evidence as laid down by the Supreme Court,” observed the court.
As per the prosecution, the motive for the crime was lustful mindset of the accused and the court observed that the prosecution successfully established all the circumstances pointing towards complicity of the CCL behind kidnapping the minor girl before her rape and murder. It also excluded every possible hypothesis, except that the CCL is the real culprit, said the court in its judgement.
During trial of the case, the defence took the plea of Corpus-Delicti by challenging the findings mentioned in the postmortem report. The phrase refers to the principle that a crime must be proved to have occurred before a person can be convicted of committing it.
The defence argued there was failure on the part of the prosecution to prove the skeletal remains were of the girl. The DNA test report cleared the doubt and confirmed the minor’s death was homicidal in nature.
The teen was sentenced to 20 years rigorous imprisonment under section 6 of POCSO Act read with section 376AB of IPC and 20 years rigorous imprisonment under section 302 of IPC. The sentences will run concurrently.