Supreme Court Acquits in IPC Sections 366A and 506 Case: Conviction Cannot Stand on Contradictory Testimony, Shoddy Investigation, and Unexplained FIR Delay

Case Name: Parminder Kaur @ P.P. Kaur @ Soni v State of Punjab
Citation: Criminal Appeal No. 283 of 2011
Date of Judgment/Order: 28.07.2020
Bench: N.V. Ramana, J.; Surya Kant, J.; Krishna Murari, J.

Held: The Supreme Court held that the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the appellant had “intentionally induced” a minor girl for illicit intercourse so as to attract Section 366A IPC, and further held that the conviction under Section 506 IPC was unsustainable because the courts below did not undertake the necessary analysis of intention to cause alarm and the intimidation charge was derivative and uncorroborated once the core prosecution version itself became doubtful.

Summary: The prosecution case alleged that the appellant, a single woman living in the neighbourhood, lured the minor prosecutrix to her house, pushed her into a tenant boy’s room and bolted the door, and later threatened the prosecutrix to maintain silence; the trial court convicted the appellant under Sections 366A and 506 IPC and the High Court affirmed, but the Supreme Court found that both courts had relied on sweeping generalisations instead of testing the evidence against the statutory ingredients, had glossed over the significance of a five-day delay in lodging the FIR despite the father being an alleged eye-witness to part of the occurrence, and had ignored the implausibility of the prosecution conduct in not pursuing or even identifying the alleged tenant boy. The Court highlighted multiple material contradictions between the testimonies of the prosecutrix and her father on core facts (including who was present at the time of unlocking, the tenant’s age and description, the duration of his stay, the attempt to catch him, and even the manner and place of recording the complaint), noted missing links and lack of detail about the crucial interval when the prosecutrix was allegedly locked inside, criticised the shoddy investigation for not tracing the alleged tenant and for failing to produce potentially relevant writings, and held that non-examination of independent witnesses further weakened the prosecution. The Court also emphasised that the appellant’s defence in her Section 313 CrPC statement—denying the existence of any tenant and alleging false implication due to prior enmity connected with a separate rape complaint—required meaningful consideration, and that the prosecution’s inability to negate a plausible defence plea created reasonable doubt.

Decision: The appeal was allowed; the Supreme Court set aside the judgments of the High Court and the trial court, quashed the conviction and sentence under Sections 366A and 506 IPC, acquitted the appellant, and directed that she be set free.