Bombay High Court: The Bench of V.M. Deshpande, J. dismissed an appeal challenging the judgment and order of Additional Sessions Judge whereby the appellant was convicted for offences punishable under Sections 376 and 506 IPC along with Sections 5 and 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012.
Appellant was accused of committing the offence of rape and sexual assault on a mentally-retarded minor girl victim after which she became pregnant. After the victim’s pregnancy came to light, she had to undergo an abortion and subsequently a case was filed against the appellant. For the said offence he was tried and convicted by the Additional Sessions Judge and sentenced to suffer imprisonment. Aggrieved thereby, appellant challenged the said judgment in the present appeal on various grounds.
One of the grounds contended by R.M. Patwardhan, Advocate for the appellant was that the DNA report should not be accepted as there was no reason for the medical officer who conducted abortion of the victim’s pregnancy to preserve the aborted foetus for DNA testing in absence of registration of offence against anybody.
Rejecting appellant’s contention as meaningless, the High Court noted Dr Kanchan Gadhe’s presence of mind and commitment towards her duty and opined that preservation of foetus was not unnatural as she knew that abortion was conducted on the minor unmarried girl. Furthermore, relying on Mukesh v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2017 (6) SCC 1, the Court observed, “the DNA report or scientific method to determine the paternity or sexual assault is firmly established. The only challenge for it can be set up that there occurred tampering with the blood sample of the accused at any stage.” Since there was no such challenge in the present case, the DNA report was accepted. Not finding any infirmity in the impugned order, the court dismissed the appeal. [Shaktiman v. State of Maharashtra, 2019 SCC OnLine Bom 139, dated 29-01-2019]
