The Delhi High Court has acquitted a young man allegedly accused of sexual assault. Delhi Police had charged Anwar Hussain with assaulting a five-year-old girl who had gone to his shop in the neighbourhood to buy some wares in 2007.
The trial court had acquitted the accused on grounds of the parents of the prosecutrix turning hostile and the failure of the prosecution to corroborate the victim's evidence.
There was also delay in lodging a case. The forensic examination of the clothes of the victim and the accused for semen also brought no definite evidence. Though the forensic report said semen was present on the clothes of both the victim and the accused, but it could not say whose it was.
The doctor also found no injury marks on the private parts of either the victim or the accused and said only some sexual misbehaviour taken place with the prosecutrix.
The victim's mother turned hostile during the trial. She told the court that her daughter had given her statement under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code under police pressure. The victim's father corroborated his wife's statement and said that neither he, his wife and nor their daughter had named Anwar as an accused before the police.
The police also failed to address discrepancies in the facts about the arrest of the accused. It also failed to pinpoint the time and place the incident occurred.
Upholding the trial court judgment and the appeal of the accused, a Division Bench comprising Justice S.P. Garg and Justice S. Ravindra Bhat said: “Considering all the facts and the circumstances of the case, we find no infirmity in the impugned judgment. The appeal is unmerited and is consequently dismissed.”
