12 years and 190 hearings later, Ghaziabad court acquits man in minor rape case

GHAZIABAD: Twelve years on, a man, accused of kidnapping and raping a minor, would walk out of jail.

There were 190 hearings on different dates in the case —which took place in Sept 2014— that moved from one court to another 17 times. The recording of evidence began 11 years later, on March 24, 2025.

On Saturday, a special Pocso court acquitted him of all the charges and ordered his immediate release. Additional sessions judge Neeraj Gautam noted inconsistencies in the statement of the survivor and rejected them as unreliable.

“The evidence of the victim (prosecution witness-3), the key prosecution witness in the present case, is contradictory on various crucial points, casting doubt on the prosecution’s narrative. There is a lack of conclusive and positive evidence on record to convict the accused. Therefore, it is established that the victim’s evidence does not fall within the category of sterling witness as enunciated by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Krishna Kumar Malik v. State of Haryana, AIR 2011 and Rai Sandeep alias Deepu v. State of NCT of Delhi, AIR 2012. The prosecution has failed to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt. Accordingly, the accused is liable to be acquitted, giving him the benefit of doubt,” the court ruled. The man needs to furnish a personal bond of Rs 20,000 with two sureties of the like amount in compliance with Section 437-A of the CrPC.

An additional sessions court framed charges against the accused two years after the incident on June 27, 2016. The case was transferred from one court to another and the statement of accused was recorded under Section 313 of the CrPC on Feb 27, 2026, in which the accused rejected the statements of prosecution witnesses, claiming innocence.

The matter relates to an FIR registered with Kavinagar police by the minor’s father on Sept 26, 2014 against the accused. The plaintiff informed the police that his minor daughter was earlier kidnapped by the same person the previous year and a case under sections 363 (kidnapping), 366 (kidnapping a woman to compel her for marriage) and 376 (rape) was pending in the Meerut ADJ court. The plaintiff expressed suspicion that to stop his daughter from recording her statement in the Meerut case, she was abducted by the accused again. Based on the complaint, police registered a case under sections 363 and 366 of the IPC.

Police found the accused and the survivor on Sept 30. Police got the minor’s medical test conducted and recorded her statement before a magistrate. Based on her statement, Section 376 of the IPC for rape and Section 3/4 Pocso (penetrative sexual assault of a minor) was added and a chargesheet was filed on Oct 25.

Prosecution presented five witnesses, including the plaintiff and the survivor. Appearing as PW3, the minor in her statement said that she was threatened by the accused to leak her photographs, so she went on her own. The court, however, noted that under Section 164 she said that she went to M Block after being threatened by the accused and in her cross-examination said that she walked from home to M Block and did not feel the need to inform her parents about the threats.

The judge noted that according to the medical examination, no external or internal injuries were found on the survivor’s body and her hymen was found to be torn and healed. “The sample was not sent to the FSL department. According to medical examiner’s (PW2’s) testimony, the aforementioned medical report cannot conclude that the victim was raped. Therefore, the medical evidence does not corroborate the prosecution’s case,” the court concluded.

The judge also rejected the prosecution’s argument about a similar case being registered against the accused, saying that it will not have any bearing on the outcome of the present case unless the charges are proved through evidence. The court said that since the accusations were not proved beyond doubt, the accused deserved to be exonerated of all charges framed against him.

(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme court directives on cases related to sexual assault)