At the age of 52, a man has been punished for a crime he committed at the age of 26.
At the age of 52, a man has been punished for a crime he committed at the age of 26.
One Piyush Mohanlal Gandhi had been accused of raping an eight-year-old girl in Makarpura area of Vadodara in 1987. However, he was sentenced to two years of imprisonment as the trial court judge then held that he had made an attempt to rape and had not actually committed the crime.
Setting aside a lower court verdict, the Gujarat high court, in a recent verdict slapped a harsher sentence of 10 years by holding that Piyush had actually raped the minor.
While pronouncing the sentence, a bench of justices Ravi Tripathi and GB Shah set aside the arguments tendered by the accused that currently he was 52 and employed in labour work. Gandhi is now a father of two sons. The elder son is a student of class X and the younger one studies in Class VII. He pays a monthly housing rent of Rs500.
According to case details, the victim, aged about eight then, had gone to the terrace of her house to watch kite-flying on January 12, 1987. As per the complaint, four to five boys, sons of the tenants staying in the same building, were flying kites. One of them was Gandhi, who raped her.
Meanwhile, on hearing the victim's shouts, her aunt rushed to the terrace. She saw the girl standing and crying on the stairs of the second floor of the house.
The girl held her knickers in her hand and Gandhi was standing near her. Her aunt also saw him buttoning his pant before running away. People gathered at the spot and lodged a complaint at the police station against Piyush.
The trial court, however, set aside allegations of rape and held that Piyush had made an attempt to rape. Piyush alleged in the trial court that the complainant's family had wrongly put the allegation as they wanted his family to vacate the house as they were tenants.
The case reached the high court in 1989.
The government counsel, on behalf of the victim's family, contended before the court that after girl's examination, the doctor had very categorically stated in his testimony that that the hymen of the girl was 'recently torn' and according to the doctor, 'she had undergone recent sexual intercourse'.
The court also did not consider the testimony of the victim girl who narrated the entire incident.
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