The trial court missed a note in the compensation schedule, and the victim was short by Rs 1.5 lakh
A conviction for aggravated penetrative sexual assault is affirmed and the sentence trimmed to the time already served plus remission. Then the Division Bench turns to a line in the West Bengal scheme nobody had applied.
On 24 September 2026, a Bench of Justice Rajasekhar Mantha and Justice Anuj Singh dismissed a criminal appeal filed in 2019 against a POCSO conviction, affirmed the finding of guilt, modified the sentence, and then corrected something neither side had made the centre of the case: the victim’s compensation had been calculated without applying a note appended to the schedule that governs it.
The conviction
The appellant was convicted in April 2019 by the Special Court under the POCSO Act at Alipore, South 24 Parganas, of offences punishable under Sections 376(2)(i) and 506(II) of the Indian Penal Code read with Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. He was sentenced to fifteen years’ rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs 20,000 for the Section 6 offence, with a further year in default.
The appeal attacked the conviction on two principal fronts: the delay in lodging the FIR, and a set of contradictions in the prosecution evidence.
Why the delay did not sink the case
The FIR was lodged in March 2016, long after the offences alleged. The Bench took the delay seriously and then explained it.
The child had explained that she was frightened and intimidated by the appellant’s threat to kill her brother, and was therefore hesitant to speak. The appellant’s relationship with her mother was a further obstacle: he was not a stranger but a trusted visitor to the household. That setting, the judgment holds, in itself explains the delay so far as the child is concerned.
The harder question concerned an adult witness who had known and not acted. The Bench accepted that a prompt report and an immediate medical examination would have produced more direct evidence, and that her failure to act promptly may in hindsight appear undesirable. But that failure could not render the other evidence nugatory. What triggered the FIR was the appellant’s return to the house in early 2016.
The delay, it concludes, undoubtedly reduced the prospect of recovering biological evidence, and warrants caution — caution the Court records it has exercised. It does not by itself create reasonable doubt. To hold the delay fatal here would mean disbelieving all the other evidence on record, and that argument was rejected.
Contradictions, and Section 29
The defence pressed a series of discrepancies: the role played by a younger sibling, the non-examination of a witness, a difference between accounts, and variations in the exact place and sequence of events. The Bench worked through them, noting along the way that a mere non-examination of a witness cannot by itself vitiate a prosecution, and that Sections 215 and 464 of the Code bear on defects of that character.
It held the contradictions not so glaring as to raise doubt or discredit the victim’s testimony, which had remained consistent and specific throughout on the repeated sexual acts alleged.
On independent analysis of the whole evidence, the Bench found the victim’s account on the core allegation of aggravated penetrative sexual assault reliable, and held that the prosecution had established the foundational facts necessary to invoke the presumption under Section 29 of the Act — which the appellant had failed to rebut. The conviction was affirmed.
A sentence recalculated against time served
Sentence, the Court held, requires a different exercise of judicial discretion, and it drew on Sachin v. State of Maharashtra (2025) for the proposition that a court affirming a conviction may still modify or alter the sentence, and on Pradeep Kumar v. State (2024), where a Section 6 conviction was maintained while the sentence was reduced after weighing custody already undergone, prison conduct, remission, the absence of prison punishment or other criminal involvement, and the prospect of rehabilitation.
A report from the Superintendent of the Baruipur Central Correction Home showed that the appellant had been in custody continuously since his arrest in March 2016 and was never released on bail, and had earned 498 days of remission as at June 2026 — so that detention plus remission came to more than ten years, four months and fourteen days.
The Bench substituted a sentence of thirteen years and six months as balancing the gravity of the offence against those circumstances. All sentences run concurrently, with set-off under Section 428 of the Code.
The note in the schedule
The last section is the one with the widest reach.
The Court begins from principle: the victim is entitled to compensation and reparation for a heinous crime committed against her at a tender age, and that reparation is owed because of the failure of the State to discharge its sovereign duty to protect its citizens from crime, citing Bijoy @ Guddu Das v. State of West Bengal. The Victim Compensation Fund is notified by the State under Section 357A of the Code, and prescribes minimum amounts for various injuries.
The trial court had awarded Rs 3,00,000 under the West Bengal Victim Compensation Scheme, 2017. What it omitted was the Note appended to the Schedule, which provides that where the victim girl is below fourteen years of age, the compensation shall be increased by fifty per cent over the amount specified.
The victim was under twelve on the date of the offence. The compensation was accordingly enhanced by a further Rs 1,50,000, taking the aggregate to Rs 4,50,000.
The Court directed that if the Rs 3,00,000 has already been paid, the balance of Rs 1,50,000 be released by the State within thirty days of communication of the judgment, in accordance with the Scheme and for the victim’s rehabilitation; and if nothing has been paid, the entire Rs 4,50,000 within the same period. The trial court is to ensure compliance with that direction.