M A I N   N E W S

Central team to visit AP today

NEW DELHI, Aug 25 (PTI) — Agriculture Minister Nitish Kumar will lead a central team to Andhra Pradesh tomorrow to make an on-the-spot assessment of the damage wrought by unprecedented rainfall and floods in the state, the Lok Sabha was informed today.

Responding to demand by Telugu Desam members for immediate ad hoc release of Rs 200 crore central relief to those affected, Mr Nitish Kumar said his ministry was in constant touch with the Andhra Pradesh Government and said the Centre would take all possible steps in this regard.

Raising the issue during zero hour, TDP leader K. Yerran Naidu said the floods had left 116 dead and a trail of destruction of property and crops besides disrupting vehicular and rail traffic.

He said most parts of Hyderabad city had been inundated and over one lakh people evacuated to safer places with the assistance of the Army and the Air Force.

Supporting Mr Naidu, Mr Somnath Chatterjee (CPM), Mr Janardhan Reddy and Mrs Renuka Chowdhury (both Congress) said immediate central relief should be despatched to the state.

Hyderabad: The toll in heavy rains that ravaged several parts of Andhra Pradesh has risen to 130 with reports of rain-related incidents pouring in from across the state even as the Army and the Indian Air Force continued rescue operations for the second day on Friday, evacuating people from marooned areas.

SC: don’t take rape cases lightly
Himachal HC order reversed
From A Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, Aug 25 — A three-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice A.S. Anand, while reversing a judgment of the Himachal Pradesh High Court which confirmed the acquittal of an accused in a rape case, has taken exception to the High Court and the Sessions Court, Chamba division, dealing with the case “so lightly”.

Holding the uncle-accused (17-year-old) guilty of raping his niece (13), the Supreme Court judges said: “The offence of rape being a serious one, the case should have received careful attention and the learned Sessions Judge and the learned single Judge of the High Court should have shown greater sensitivity to these types of cases”.

“The evidence should have been appreciated on broader probabilities and the court should not be carried away by insignificant contradictions”, the judges added while describing findings of the Sessions Court on which the acquittal was based as “unreasonable”. The two findings confirmed by the High Court were that the victim was above 16 and had given her consent for the sexual act.

Holding the accused guilty of punishable of the offence under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code, the court noted that the accused was the brother of the victim’s mother who asked her daughter, accompanied by the accused, to fetch a plough from a nearby village on April 17, 1993.

The judges noted in their judgement that when the victim entered her father’s house at Bhadhad and reached the cowshed, the accused, who was following her, caught her from behind, overpowered her and forcibly committed the sexual act in the cow-shed. On returning home, the victim immediately told her father about the incident.

Besides Chief Justice Anand, the other two members on the Bench were Justice R.C. Lahoti and Justice K.G. Balkrishnan. Accepting the version of the victim as being corroborated by medical and circumstantial evidence, the judges held that there was resistance by the victim and there was no voluntary participation by her for the sexual act.

Delivering the judgment for the Bench, Justice Balkrishnan stated: “Submission of the body under the fear of terror cannot be construed as a consented sexual act. Consent for the purpose of Section 375, IPC requires voluntary participation not only after the exercise of intelligence based on the knowledge of the significance and moral quality of the act, but after having fully exercised the choice between resistance and assent.”

“Whether there was consent or not, is to be ascertained on a careful study of all relevant circumstances. From the evidence on record it cannot be said that the prosecutrix had given consent and, thereafter, she turned round and acted against the interest of the accused”, Justice Balkrishnan added.