Lucknow: A Lucknow bench of Allahabad high court has acquitted a man who was sentenced to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment for allegedly abducting a minor girl, holding that the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that she was a minor and questioning the trial court’s assessment of her age.Justice Subhash Vidyarthi set aside the Feb 8, 2013, judgment of an Unnao additional sessions court, which had convicted Bhaiya Lal Raidas under Section 366 of the IPC and imposed a seven-year jail term along with a fine of Rs 10,000.The order was passed recently and uploaded on Friday. An FIR was lodged in 2011 after the girl’s father alleged that the accused had enticed away his minor daughter.The high court noted that both a doctor and a radiologist had assessed the girl’s age around 18 years. However, the trial court independently concluded, on the basis of her teeth and physical features, that she was between 14 and 17 years old. The bench observed that the trial court had effectively substituted its own opinion for that of medical experts.It further pointed out that medical age determination carries a margin of error of up to two years, meaning the girl could have been as old as 20 at the time of the incident. As a result, the prosecution could not conclusively establish that she was a minor.The court also found deficiencies in the evidence regarding the girl’s date of birth. Her father neither mentioned her age in the FIR nor claimed to know her exact age or date of birth during his testimony. Although the girl referred to a Class VIII marksheet showing her date of birth as Sept 25, 1993, neither the original document nor a copy was produced before the trial court, and it was never formally exhibited.The bench held that documents cannot be relied upon unless properly brought on record and proved through witnesses. No school official was examined to authenticate the marksheet.The court also considered the girl’s inconsistent statements. Before a magistrate, she had stated that she voluntarily accompanied the accused, wished to marry him and did not want to return to her parents. However, during the trial, she alleged that the accused had rendered her unconscious and taken her to Ludhiana.Noting that she lived with the accused in a rented house in Ludhiana for about seven months without alleging force during that period, the high court held that her testimony lacked the level of reliability required to sustain a conviction and acquitted the accused.
