New Delhi: A city court has sentenced a man to four years in jail for sexually assaulting his septuagenarian mother, describing the “unimaginable” offence as a “vile act” that is universally held as “morally and physically reprehensible”.
The court rubbished the defence of the 48-year-old son, Raju, who claimed he was framed in a property dispute. “No mother would implicate her son in such a heinous offence,” it observed.
The court, stating that the accused had committed the “vile act” under the influence of liquor five years ago, rejected the contention of the convict's counsel that there was a delay in lodging an FIR.
“We should not forget that ...the victim is none else but the real mother of the accused. She might have thought a number of times before reporting the matter to the police against her son for such an offence,” it said in a recent judgement.
Additional Sessions Judge Sanjiv Jain said in a conservative society, “an indelible stigma” is attached to a victim.
“Ours is a conservative society and, therefore, a woman will not put her reputation in peril by falsely alleging about a forcible sexual assault. In examining the evidence of the prosecutrix, the court must be alive to the conditions prevalent in Indian society and must not be swayed by beliefs in other countries,” the judge said.
The judge also said the courts should be sensitive to the plight of a victim of a sexual assault as it brings "humiliation, a feeling of disgust, tremendous embarrassment, and sense of shame, trauma and a life-long emotional scar".
Analysing the facts of the case in hand, the court said the son caused his mother "grievous" injuries. “He also abused her and absconded after the incident,” it said.
The court sentenced Raju to four years in jail for molestation, voluntarily causing grievous hurt and insulting the modesty of a woman under the Indian Penal Code.
“It is true that the convict is 48 years old but the court cannot lose sight of the fact that he committed the said act with his mother and such an offence is universally considered to be among the most morally and physically reprehensible crimes in society and an assault on the body, mind, privacy and the entire fabric of the victim,” it said.
According to Mohd Iqrar, the public prosecutor in the case, Raju, who was drunk, abused his mother on September 23, 2012. He dragged her from the staircase in their house into his room, bolted it from inside, assaulted her and grievously injured her.
Because of the injury, her uterus had to be removed. During the trial, the accused denied the allegations contending that he was falsely implicated by his mother and brother because of a property dispute.
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