Madurai Bench Upholds Life Imprisonment in Social-Media Romance Fraud Rape Case, Warns on Vicarious Trauma to Legal Officers

The Madurai Bench affirmed conviction under Section 376(2)(n) IPC, finding that consent procured through deception, false promise of marriage, and sexual extortion was no consent in law. A postscript by Justice N. Anand Venkatesh calls for institutional safeguards against vicarious trauma suffered by investigators, counsel, and judges exposed to graphic digital evidence.

A Division Bench of the Madras High Court sitting at Madurai dismissed the criminal appeal filed by Suji @ Kasi, who had been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment until natural death by the Fast Track Mahila Court, Nagercoil, for the offence of repeated rape under Section 90 read with Section 376(2)(n) of the Indian Penal Code. The bench — comprising Justice N. Anand Venkatesh and Justice K.K. Ramakrishnan — pronounced the judgment on 14 July 2026, having reserved it on 19 June 2026. The court held that the victim's consent, if any, was entirely vitiated by the accused's systematic deception, false promises of marriage and employment, clandestine recording of intimate acts, and subsequent criminal intimidation by threatening to publish those recordings. The statutory presumption under Section 114A of the Indian Evidence Act operated against the accused and was not rebutted. The conviction and sentence were confirmed in full. A separate postscript by Justice N. Anand Venkatesh addressed the neurological and psychological harm suffered by legal officers compelled to view graphic digital evidence.

The Prosecution Case Before the Madurai Bench

The accused was first arrested on 24 April 2020 in Crime No. 503 of 2020 registered by the local police after a complaint by another victim. During that investigation, an Apple iPhone (M.O.4, bearing IMEI No. 353839101001992) and a MacBook laptop (M.O.3) were recovered — the laptop from the father of the accused, who was arrayed as Accused No. 2. The devices contained obscene photographs and videos of several women, including minors.

The victim in the present case lodged a separate complaint before the CBCID on 30 September 2020, specifically requesting that her identity be protected. The CBCID obtained permission from its head office and registered Crime No. 8 of 2020 on 13 October 2020 (Ex. P29). The accused, already in judicial custody, was formally arrested in this case on 27 October 2020 and placed in police custody for four days from 7 to 11 November 2020.

During that custody period, the investigating officer obtained a forensic hard disk from the Forensic Science Laboratory on 10 November 2020. An identification procedure was conducted before Scientific Officer P.W.18 and independent witnesses P.W.19 and P.W.21, in which the accused identified the victim in the offending material. The process was recorded in Ex. P12. The final report was filed on 25 January 2021 in S.C. No. 41 of 2021 before the Fast Track Mahila Court, Nagercoil. The prosecution examined 29 witnesses, marked Exhibits P1 to P34, and produced Material Objects 1 to 20.

The trial court convicted the accused under Sections 376(2)(n), 417, 354(A), 294(b), and 354(C) of the IPC, and Section 66E of the Information Technology Act, and acquitted him under Sections 354(B) and 354(D) IPC. The sentence for Section 376(2)(n) was life imprisonment until natural death with a fine of Rs. 1,00,000. For Section 354(C), three years rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs. 10,000 was imposed. For Section 506(II), three years rigorous imprisonment was awarded. The accused challenged this before the Madurai Bench.

Four Stages of Deception Identified by the Court

Justice K.K. Ramakrishnan, writing for the bench, analysed the victim's testimony across what the court characterised as four distinct stages of a continuous fraudulent design.

In the first stage, the accused contacted the victim on Facebook. Despite her repeated refusal of his friend request, he persisted, falsely representing that he could secure employment for her and simultaneously expressing love and proposing marriage. Having secured her phone number ostensibly for employment purposes, he shifted communication to WhatsApp, isolating her from public scrutiny. The court found this transition was “part of a carefully designed plan to isolate the victim.”

In the second stage, the accused induced the victim to meet him on 19 September 2019 by repeatedly insisting the meeting was to finalise marriage arrangements. At the meeting, she refused to sit in the front seat of the car, entering only the rear seat with evident reluctance. The accused drove to a factory premises, locked the building, and thereafter activated the central locking system of the car, preventing her from leaving. The court found her conduct entirely inconsistent with the defence theory of willing participation. She was then subjected to forcible sexual intercourse.

In the third stage, on 20 September 2019, the accused sought forgiveness, reiterated his promise to marry her, and lured her to another meeting on the pretext of handing over an employment appointment letter. The same coercive pattern was repeated. During this meeting the accused also took an offensive selfie photograph (Ex. P1) with the victim.

In the fourth stage, after the victim refused further contact, the accused revealed on 26 September 2019 that he had secretly recorded their intimate moments and threatened to publish the material on social media if she did not comply. The victim agreed to meet him solely to request deletion of the material. He again subjected her to sexual intercourse. During this fourth incident, she sustained injuries that were spoken to by P.W.7, a medical witness. The accused thereafter warned her not to disclose the matter to anyone.

The court held that the prosecution had proved the repeated acts of sexual intercourse beyond reasonable doubt, and that the victim's apparent submission at each stage was not free consent but the product of deception, criminal intimidation, and coercion.

Consent, Section 90 IPC, and the Section 114A Presumption

The bench directly confronted the defence plea that the relationship was consensual. It distinguished between two categories of Supreme Court decisions: cases where a genuine romantic relationship ended due to unforeseen circumstances (not amounting to rape), and cases where the accused from the very inception practised deception with no intention of fulfilling the promise of marriage (vitiating consent under Section 90 IPC). The court held this case fell squarely in the latter category.

Relying on Anurag Soni v. State of Chhattisgarh, reported in (2019) 13 SCC 1, the bench restated that consent obtained on the basis of a false promise of marriage, where the accused never intended to marry, is consent given under a misconception of fact and is no consent in law. It also drew on Karthi alias Karthick v. State of Tamil Nadu, (2013) 12 SCC 710, and Dhruvaram Murlidhar Sonar v. State of Maharashtra, (2019) 18 SCC 191, distinguishing a mere breach of promise from a fraudulent promise made purely to obtain sexual access.

The bench addressed the Supreme Court's recent decision in Pramod Kumar Navratna v. State of Chhattisgarh, 2026 INSC 124, which the defence had relied upon. It distinguished that case on facts — the complainant there was a married adult fully aware of the legal impediment to marriage — and noted that the Supreme Court's caution in that judgment was directed at preventing criminalisation of genuinely consensual adult relationships gone sour, not at cases of romance fraud and sexual extortion of the present kind.

Once the prosecution proved repeated sexual intercourse and the victim deposed that she never consented, the bench held that the statutory presumption under Section 114A of the Indian Evidence Act operated against the accused. The accused adduced no evidence capable of rebutting it. Accordingly, the conviction under Section 376(2)(n) IPC was confirmed.

Electronic Evidence: Section 65B, Chain of Custody, and Morphing

The defence raised multiple objections to the electronic evidence: absence of a Section 65B certificate for the MacBook contents, the belated production of the FSL report after the final report was filed, the possibility of morphing, and the alleged fabrication of Ex. P12 due to a date discrepancy.

On the Section 65B argument, the court held that the MacBook (M.O.3) was itself the original device, seized lawfully and produced before the competent court. The electronic material extracted from it was therefore primary evidence and no Section 65B certificate was required, relying on the three-judge bench decision in Arjun Panditrao Khotkar v. Kailash Kushanrao Gorantyal, (2020) 7 SCC 1, which held that when the original device is produced, no certificate is needed. The court distinguished the situation of a computer output from an original device from a situation involving secondary electronic copies.

On the belated FSL report, the court accepted the prosecution's explanation that the FSL comprises separate specialised divisions — a computer division, anthropology division, and physics division — undertaking multi-stage independent analysis before producing a consolidated report. The investigating officer had filed the final report with sufficient material already on record, including the victim's statement, recovery pursuant to the accused's disclosure, and the earlier report Ex. P17 from the base case. During trial, the prosecution filed a petition to examine P.W.29 (FSL officer) and the accused raised no objection; the petition was allowed. The court found this procedurally proper and consistent with the court's duty to place all relevant evidence on record.

On the date discrepancy in Ex. P12, the investigation document recording the identification procedure showed “11.10.2020” in the signature column though the process occurred on 10.11.2020. The court accepted this as an inadvertent human error, noting that all other witnesses signed on 10.11.2020 and the material object was received from the court on 11.11.2020 itself. There was no cogent evidence of deliberate fabrication.

On morphing, the bench viewed the video in open court. It ran for more than 18 minutes. The court found not even a slight circumstance suggesting digital manipulation. Both forensic experts P.W.22 and P.W.29 categorically deposed that there was no morphing. Mere suggestions in cross-examination about theoretical possibility of morphing, unsupported by any scientific evidence, were rejected.

Delay in FIR, Omissions, and Coercion by Investigating Agency

The victim lodged her complaint on 30 September 2020, more than a year after the first assault on 19 September 2019. The bench held the delay was fully explained. The accused was in possession of the intimate recordings and continuously threatened to publish them on social media. The victim's complaint itself requested that her identity be protected and asked for the deletion of the offending material — contemporaneous requests that demonstrated genuine fear rather than afterthought. It was only after the investigating agency in the base case seized the electronic devices that the victim gathered the courage to approach the police. The court relied on Karnel Singh v. State of M.P., (1995) 5 SCC 518; State of Punjab v. Gurmit Singh, (1996) 2 SCC 384; State of H.P. v. Prem Singh, (2009) 1 SCC 420; and Deepak v. State of Haryana, (2015) 4 SCC 762, for the settled principle that delay in reporting sexual offences is different in character from delay in other crimes.

On the omission of all instances of sexual assault from the FIR, the court reiterated that an FIR is not required to be an encyclopaedia of every detail. The victim's Section 164 Cr.P.C. statement narrated the repeated assaults, and her trial testimony was consistent. The defence's own cross-examination suggestions admitted the fact of physical intimacy on multiple occasions, undermining any argument that the silence in the FIR rendered the whole case doubtful.

The defence allegation that the investigating agency had coerced the victim into lodging the complaint was rejected outright. The victim denied the suggestion categorically in cross-examination. No contemporaneous document, complaint, or independent evidence was produced to substantiate the allegation. The court also noted that a prior attempt by the accused to dispute the victim's signature on Ex. P1 had been rejected at the trial stage and confirmed by this court in Crl.OP(MD) No. 692 of 2023.

Sentence and Aggravating Circumstances

The bench declined to interfere with the sentence. It found no mitigating circumstance. The accused had systematically preyed on the victim over a prolonged period, retained the offending material as a weapon of coercion, and the material objects recovered disclosed exploitation of multiple women and minor children. The court described the accused as a habitual sexual predator whose conduct demonstrated “a high degree of premeditation, cruelty, and moral depravity.” Life imprisonment until natural death under Section 376(2)(n) IPC, three years rigorous imprisonment under Section 354(C), and three years rigorous imprisonment under Section 506(II) IPC were confirmed.

In respect of sentences under Sections 417, 354(A), 294(b) of IPC and Section 66E of the Information Technology Act, the trial court had not imposed separate sentences in view of Section 71 IPC. The bench noted it had no jurisdiction to interfere with that decision in the absence of an appeal by the prosecution.

Justice N. Anand Venkatesh on Vicarious Trauma in the Digital Age

Justice N. Anand Venkatesh, concurring in a postscript, raised a concern separate from the merits. He noted that courts dealing with sexual offences are increasingly required to view explicit digital recordings of violence rather than merely evaluating textual descriptions. In the present case, a lady investigating officer had to examine nearly sixty files of graphic material to locate the single item relevant to this victim. Prosecutors, defence counsel, and judges at every level then face the same material.

Drawing on neurobiology, the postscript observed that mirror neurons — the biological substrate of empathy — fire similarly whether an event is experienced or merely observed. A high-definition video of a sexual assault triggers the brain's primitive alarm system in the same manner as witnessing the event live. The “professional detachment” claimed by legal professionals does not immunise them from this effect. Repeated exposure produces measurable psychological consequences: constant hypervigilance, cognitive fatigue from suppressing distress responses, and eventual emotional numbing that undermines the empathy needed for just decision-making.

Justice N. Anand Venkatesh called on the judiciary and institutional leaders to build mandatory protective responses: psychological screening, regular counselling, decompression protocols after exposure to graphic material, rotation of personnel assigned such material, training to recognise vicarious trauma, and secure procedural facilities to minimise unnecessary exposure. He described these not as luxuries but as essential to the integrity of a justice system that still depends on human judgment.

The postscript also addressed persons beyond the courtroom, urging young girls and women to exercise extreme caution before sharing intimate photographs or videos through electronic means with anyone. The court delivered this advisory portion in English, Tamil, and Hindi, and requested print, electronic, and digital media to give it wider publicity. The Registry was directed not to upload the Tamil portion of the order to the official website, except paragraph 25.4.

Order

Crl.A(MD) No. 644 of 2023 was dismissed. The conviction and sentence imposed by the Fast Track Mahila Court, Nagercoil, in S.C. No. 41 of 2021 by judgment dated 14 June 2023 were confirmed in their entirety.