The story so far: On May 13, 2025, a Mahila Court in Coimbatore convicted nine men from Pollachi under Section 376D (gang rape) of the Indian Penal Code and imposed the maximum punishment of imprisonment for the remainder of their life. The court also awarded a compensation of ₹85 lakh to seven victims, including those who had been subjected to sexual assault repeatedly pursuant a conspiracy hatched by the convicts between October 2016 and February 2019. According to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the modus operandi of the convicts was to befriend women before abducting and subjecting them to sexual assault. The prosecution had also charged the gang of recording the sexual acts on video and using those clips to threaten and rape the women repeatedly on different occasions. The 658-page judgement delivered by sessions judge R. Nandhini Devi highlights the challenges faced by the prosecution in proving its case in order to secure a conviction.
Did Victim ‘A’ exaggerate the offence committed against her?
Victim ‘A’, a 19-year-old college girl, was the last victim of the convicts before they got arrested in 2019. However, she turned out to be the first to lodge a police complaint on February 24, 2019 leading to the unearthing of their antecedents. According to the prosecution, A1 (28-year-old Rishwanth alias N. Sabarirajan, a civil engineer by profession) had pretended to have fallen in love with the victim, taken her to a place near a poultry farm in a car and abused her sexually by removing her upper garments on February 12, 2019. He also surreptitiously shot half naked pictures of the victim with a mobile phone and used them to threaten her. When she confided about it to her family members after a few days, her elder brother and his friends tracked down the accused as well as his accomplices and found many videos of other women having been subjected to sexual assault by the gang. Therefore, the family decided to lodge a complaint after 12 days since the victim was abused.
When victim ‘A’ deposed before the trial court after six years, she levelled the charge of rape too against A1. However, the CBI Special Public Prosecutor fairly conceded that such an exaggerated claim made by the victim for the first time before the trial court, and not made before any of the four investigating officers or the two judicial magistrates during the course of investigation, need not be given credence.
After recording his submission, the court said, it was quite possible that the victim did not want the accused to escape from punishment or imposed with lesser punishment and therefore, she might have chosen to make an exaggerated allegation.
Stating that the improved version of the victim could certainly not be accepted by the court, the trial judge said, at the same time, the entire testimony of the victim could not be discarded just because of the exaggerated portion. The principle falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus (false in one thing, false in everything) has no application in Indian courts, she said.
“There is a marked difference between exaggerated version and false version,” the judge observed and added that it was the duty of the court to sift the chaff from the grain in case of exaggerations or contradictions.
Ultimately, the trial court convicted A1 for the charge of outraging the modesty of the victim but acquitted A2 (30-year-old financier K. Thirunavukkarasu) and A5 (28-year-old Mani alias R. Manivannan whose car was used for the crime) from the charges levelled against them for having facilitated the offence against this victim.
What was the goof up in the charge sheets related to Victim B?
Victim ‘B’ was also a final year college student. She had been brutally gang raped by A1, A2, A3 (29-year-old M. Sathish), A4 (26-year-old T. Vasanthakumar) and A7 (29-year-old Haron alias T. Haronimus Paul) on April 24, 2018 despite being informed that she was menstruating at that point of time. The first charge sheet filed by CBI Inspector Vijayavaishnavi had mentioned the incident to have taken place in April 2018 but the supplementary charge sheet filed by Inspector Pachayammal had mentioned it as November 2018.
The SPP told the court the victim had specifically mentioned the occurrence to have taken place only in November 2018 to the second investigating officer but had not mentioned any specific date or month to the first investigating officer. Nevertheless, it was not known as to how the first investigating officer had mentioned the month as April 2018 in the first charge sheet.
However, relying upon the forensic report regarding the video shot during the gang rape, the trial court concluded that the offence had taken place only in April and not November 2018. It also stated that the victim might have had confusion in recalling the exact month since semester examinations generally take place during April as well as November. The judge also held that the prosecution had failed to prove the use of a black colour car for abducting the victim since it had been purchased by A1 only on August 11, 2018.
Nevertheless, the judge convicted all the five accused for gang rape on the basis of the victim’s oral testimony corroborated by the electronic evidence.
Why SC/ST Act was not invoked with respect to Victims ‘C’ and ‘E’?
According to the prosecution, Victim ‘C’ was gang raped by A2, A5 and A6 in September 2018 and Victim ‘E’, a MBA final year student, was raped by A1 and subjected to criminal intimidation by A2 and A5. Since both the victims belonged to a Scheduled Caste, the defence counsel contended that the entire prosecution launched against them would fall to the ground. The counsel pointed out that only an officer in the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police or above should investigate cases under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989 and since only officers in the rank of Inspector had investigated the present case, all the charges against the accused must be eschewed.
However, rejecting their argument, the trial judge held that the SC/ST Act need not be invoked merely because the victims happened to be from a Scheduled Caste unless there was evidence to prove that the offence had been committed due to caste hatred.
How did A6 get convicted for raping Victims ‘D’ & ‘H’ though he was not involved in any sexual act?
The trial court found A2, A3 and A5 to have subjected Victim ‘D’, a second year college student, to gang rape in October 2018. A6 had waited outside when the crime was committed and then dropped the victim in a car at Pollachi bus stand. Similarly, when eight of the nine accused mercilessly raped Victim ‘H’, a teacher at a private school, one after the other, A6 alone had refused to indulge in any sexual act despite being asked to do so by A5. Nevertheless, the trial court convicted A6 too for the charge of gang rape of both the victims since he was a part of the gang.
Similarly, the court convicted A2 to A4 too for the charge of gang rape of Victim ‘G’, a beauty parlour employee, though the sexual act against her had been committed only by A1.
The trial judge pointed out that the Supreme Court in its latest judgement delivered on May 2, 2025 in Raju alias Umakant versus State of Madhya Pradesh had held that it was not necessary for all the persons in a gang to have indulged in overt sexual acts to be convicted for gang rape. It was sufficient even if one of them had committed the act in pursuance of the common intention among the gang members.
Why didn’t Victim ‘F’ testify in court leading to acquittal of accused?
The prosecution’s case was that the nine accused had sexually assaulted as many as eight victims in total. However, one of them (Victim F) did not come forward to testify before the court. According to the prosecution, Victim ‘F’ was abducted and gang raped by A1, A2, A3, and A7. The victim had written a letter to the trial court expressing her inability to depose before the court due to a situation prevailing in her matrimonial home and the continuous medical treatment required for her new born baby. Therefore, left with no option, the CBI had dispensed with her examination before the court.
The court acquitted all four accused from the charge of raping her but held that no adverse inference could be drawn against the prosecution and the CBI could not be found to have deliberately withheld the witness especially when it could not convince her to testify despite best efforts.
How did the court deal with defence arguments?
The defence raised many issues such as non production of the mobile phones of the victims, non collection of CCTV footage to prove abduction from public places, prosecution’s failure to secure the clothes worn by the victims at the time of the crime, the non inclination of the victims to undergo medical examination and so on to make a dent in the prosecution case. However, the trial judge rejected all such contentions by observing that in sexual offence cases, the oral evidence of the victims alone was sufficient to convict the accused if such evidence inspires the confidence of the court.
“Our jurisprudential enthusiasm for presumed innocence must be moderated by the pragmatic need to make criminal justice potent and realistic… Proof beyond reasonable doubt does not mean proof beyond the shadow of doubt. The law would fail to protect the community if it admitted fanciful possibilities to deflect the court of justice,” the judge observed.
Published – May 31, 2025 09:30 am IST