The Supreme Court of India.
Credit: PTI File Photo
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday said, a victim of sex trafficking, particularly a minor, is not an accomplice and her deposition is to be given due regard and credence as that of an injured witness.
Upholding conviction of K P Kirankumar alias Kiran, a man from Bengaluru, a bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Joymalya Bagchi said, if the version of the victim appeared to be credible and convincing, a conviction may be maintained on her sole testimony.
"The cases of child trafficking are not isolated aberrations but part of an entrenched pattern of organised exploitation that continues despite legislative safeguards. The judicial assessment of such cases must be informed by sensitivity to the lived realities of minor victims rather than rigid or hyper-technical standards of proof," the bench said.
While appreciating the evidence of a minor victim of trafficking, the court ought to bear in mind her inherent socio-economic and, at times, cultural vulnerability when the minor belonged to a marginalised or socially and culturally backward community.
The bench also emphasised, the court should consider the complex and layered structure of organised crime networks which operated at various levels of recruiting, transporting, harbouring and exploiting minor victims.
"Such organised crime activities operate as apparently independent verticals whose insidious intersections are conveniently veiled through subterfuges and deception to hoodwink innocent victims. Failure to promptly protest against ostensibly innocuous yet ominous agenda of the trafficker ought not to be treated as a ground to discard a victim’s version as improbable or against ordinary human conduct," the court said.
The court also underscored, judicial appreciation of the victim’s evidence must be marked by sensitivity and realism.
"Recounting and narration of the horrible spectre of sexual exploitation even before law enforcement agencies and the Court is an unpalatable experience leading to secondary victimisation. This is more acute when the victim is a minor and is faced with threats of criminal intimidation, fear of retaliation, social stigma and paucity of social and economic rehabilitation," the bench said.
In the case, the court noted, the victim's testimony was most credible and established that the accused had procured her for sexual exploitation and utilised her for such immoral purposes. The minor’s version was also corroborated by other evidence on record, as well as the NGO worker, who intimated the police with regard to prostitution being carried out by the appellant in his rented premises. The court also found, the police also recovered cash received by the appellant, along-with other incriminating articles namely, condom etc.
On November 22, 2010, on important from NGO workers, the police deployed a decoy customer and rescued the 16-year-old girl from a rented premises in Bengaluru in a raid.
In her statement, the girl stated, driven by abject poverty, she left her residence seeking respectful employment. Taking advantage of such economic vulnerability, four unknown persons brought her to the appellant’s house.
In her presence, she claimed, the appellant made telephone calls for sexually exploiting the victim. Some persons came to the house and the victim was asked to have sex with them, which she refused. Thereupon, the accused compelled her to accompany one Naveen, who took her to another place where she was sexually exploited.
Thereafter, she was brought back to the appellant’s rented apartment where she had to satisfy the lust of various customers. Finally, on November 22, 2020, the police raided the apartment and rescued her.
Finding that both trial court and High Court correctly appreciated the evidence of the minor trafficked victim, Justice Bagchi for the bench wrote in the judgment, the instant case lays bare the deeply disturbing reality of child trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation in India, an offence that strikes at the very foundations of dignity, bodily integrity and the State’s constitutional promise of protection to every child against exploitation leading to moral and material abandonment.