Man gets 14 years jail term for raping, sodomising daughter

A man has been sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for raping and sodomising his 20-year-old daughter, by a Delhi court which noted that he violated all limits of humanity and showed no repentance over his offence.

Additional Sessions Judge Pawan Kumar Jain, while taking a stern view, handed down the jail term to the man for raping his daughter and criminally intimidating her and also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on him.

The judge held the man guilty under various sections of the Indian Penal Code including rape, unnatural sex, criminal intimidation, assault and voluntarily causing hurt to the victim.

"It is proved beyond all reasonable doubts that accused had not only committed rape upon the victim but he also committed unnatural sex with her..." the court said.

While sentencing the man, the court noted that he was a perpetual offender as he had been jailed several times before for other crimes and rejected his prayer for leniency.

It held that the man does not deserve minimum punishment as "he chose his own daughter to satisfy his lust."

"Being the father of victim, it was his duty to protect her from any such assault but he himself violated all limits of humanity and committed rape upon her," the court said.

While noting that the man had accused his wife and daughter of being involved in prostitution, the court said that "this further indicates that convict has no repentance over his act."

According to the prosecution, the victim lodged a complaint with the police that she was raped by her father on the night of July 6, 2012 and he also committed unnatural sex with her. 

The police said that on the next day, the victim informed her maternal aunt, with whom her father got married after her biological mother deserted them. The girl was living with her father, second mother and three brothers.

She had told the police that her father had raped her several times before also.

The police said her father had tried to molest her a week before the incident and injured her with a hot knife in the absence of other family members.

The victim also told the court that her father was jailed many times before for other crimes and he also used to beat his second wife.

The court, however, did not accept the victim's statement regarding the earlier sexual assault incidents due to lack of evidence but it accepted the testimony of her second mother who had injury marks on her body.

The man, in his defence, claimed that it was his ex-wife who had falsely implicated him in the case because he refused to accept her back in his life. He added that when he was in jail, his second wife (victim's aunt) visited him in jail and said that his ex-wife wanted half of his property to take the case back.

During the trial, he also claimed before the court that his ex-wife, daughter and second wife were engaged in prostitution and when he tried to stop them, they levelled false allegations on him.

The man, through his counsel, had prayed for a minimum punishment on the ground that he was the sole bread earner of the family with his three sons dependant on him.