Having a daughter the same age proves nothing, and a six-year-old's delayed disclosure was natural

Justice Rakesh Kainthla dismissed a revision pending since 2014, upholding a conviction under Section 354 IPC and a sentence of one year's simple imprisonment.

The incident was reported in 2003, the conviction came in 2009, the appeal was decided in 2014, and the revision was dismissed on 13 October 2026. What the judgment adds to the record is its treatment of two arguments that recur in cases of this kind: that a child who waits before telling anyone is not to be believed, and that a man with a daughter of the victim's age would not have done it.

The case at trial

The police filed a charge sheet for an offence punishable under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code. The informant and the accused were neighbours in government accommodation. The child disclosed to her mother in October 2003 that the accused had taken her into a room while his wife was away, bolting his own children in the kitchen, and that he had done so several times before. The matter was reported, an FIR was registered, an inspector investigated, prepared the site plan and recorded statements, and a challan was filed.

The accused pleaded not guilty and claimed trial. The prosecution examined six witnesses, including the child herself, the investigating officer and the cousin to whom she first spoke. The Judicial Magistrate convicted him in August 2009 and the Sessions Judge (Forest) at Shimla upheld the conviction and sentence in September 2014.

Why the delay did not damage the case

The Court held the child's testimony natural. She was six years old at the time of the incident and would have been unable to comprehend much of what was happening to her. She narrated it to her parents only when her cousin advised her to do so. On that reading her conduct was natural rather than suspicious, and the courts below had rightly accepted her evidence.

A defence witness had been produced to suggest that the child's parents put her up to a false statement because of a quarrel between the child's mother and the accused's wife. The Court agreed with the courts below in rejecting that testimony, and gave a reason of simple logic: if the family had been bent on falsely implicating someone, they would have implicated the wife who quarrelled with the mother, not the husband with whom they had no quarrel. The witness also admitted that no complaint had ever been made about the threats she spoke of.

The argument about the accused's own daughter

It was submitted that the accused had a daughter of the same age as the child, and so would not have behaved indecently towards her. The Court rejected it in terms: there is no universal law that a person having a minor daughter would not act indecently with another, the history and law books are filled with incidents where such events have occurred, and there is nothing inherently improbable in the act alleged.

On the evidence as a whole, the Court held that the child's testimony proved the offence of outraging her modesty and that the trial court had rightly convicted the accused under Section 354.

Sentence

The trial court had imposed simple imprisonment for one year. Considering the age of the child, and that the accused had taken advantage of being her neighbour, the High Court held that a sentence of one year cannot be said to be excessive and required no interference.

Order

No other point was urged. The revision failed and was dismissed, with pending applications disposed of, and a copy of the judgment directed to be sent along with the records of the courts below.