The Hon’ble High Court of Madhya Pradesh vide judgement dated 16.10.2020 held that in cases of gang rape, delay in filing FIR is not a ground to set aside entire case of the victim. The Hon’ble High Court also took note of the fact that medical corroboration is not an absolute necessity in such cases.
The said judgement was passed in an appeal filed under Section 14-A of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 against the impugned order dated 09.06.2020 of the Special Judge, Jabalpur wherein the court had dismissed the application filed by the Appellant under Section 439 of Code of Criminal Procedure 1973.
The Appellantin the present case was accused of gang rapingthe Prosecutrix who was allegedly married to him. The Appellant was thereby in custody since 05.09.2018 for committing offences under Sections 363, 366, 344, 328, 506, 376(2)(N) and 376(D) of the Indian Penal Code.
Counsel for the Appellant submitted that there was no direct or indirect allegation against the Appellant. Also, there was delay in lodging the FIR for which no explanation was tendered. He further submitted that the Prosecutrix had infact married the 20 year old Appellant. It was thus prayed to the Hon’ble High Court to releasethe Appellant on bail.
Counsel for the Prosecutrix, on the other hand opposed the bail application by submitting that the present case was a matter of gang rape as per the Prosecutrix statement recorded under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973.
The Hon’ble Single Bench comprising of Justice Akhil Kumar Srivastava after hearing both the parties held that being a matter of gang rape, delay in filing an FIR was not a sufficient ground to dismiss the entire case of the Prosecutrix. Furthermore, he added that medical corroboration was not necessary in the present matter.
The Hon’ble High Court thereby refused to grant bail to the Appellant and dismissed the appeal.
