A Delhi court has awarded a 10-year jail term to a man for sexually assaulting his five-year-old daughter after consuming alcohol, saying there was no reason why the child would falsely implicate her father.
Additional Sessions Judge Gurdeep Singh held the man guilty of the offenses of raping a woman under 12 years of age and aggravated sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
"The convict has committed rape upon his own daughter who was only 5 years old at the time of offence," the judge said.
The man was living with his daughter at a jewellery box factory after his wife had passed away. On November 14, 2013, after consuming alcohol he raped his daughter. The girl who informed her father's employer the next day and a complain was lodged, the prosecution said.
The court, while awarding him sentence, said after passing away of her mother she had been living with her father only and there was no reason for her to lodge a false case against him at the behest of a stranger.
"The child would not depose against her father merely on the tutoring of his employer with whom the child was acquainted only for one and a half months. Accordingly, I am of the opinion that defence of the accused is shame defence and cannot be accepted," the judge said.
It also awarded a compensation of Rs. 7.5 lakh to the victim from the Delhi District Legal Service Authority after hearing submissions of the RCC lawyer Shabnam Khan from Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) who acted as court's assistant in the matter.
"The injury cannot be quantified in monetary terms in view of the life long scar on the mind of the victim and mental and physical trauma which she has suffered. Therefore keeping in view the age and economic conditions of the victim, the effect of the crime on her, I am of the opinion that the victim child is entitled to a compensation of Rs. 7.5 lakh," the judge said.
