School principal, father of rape survivor held by Rajasthan Police for falsifying birth records
Jaipur (PTI): A private school principal and father of a 14-year-old rape survivor have been arrested for allegedly tampering with the birth records of the girl to help the accused secure bail, police said on Sunday.
The principal was arrested from Deoria on Thursday while the girl's father was caught from Behror in Rajasthan on Saturday night, Station House Officer (SHO) of Murlipura Police Station Sunil Kumar Jangir said.
The girl had lodged an FIR in July alleging that her aunt had sold her to one Sandeep Yadav, a resident of Haryana, for Rs two lakh and that she was subsequently raped.
The case was registered under various sections of the IPC and POCSO Act and after investigation, her aunt, Sandeep Yadav and his father Satveer Yadav were arrested and sent to judicial custody.
In the meanwhile, the girl's father Sanjay allegedly contacted a private school in Uttar Pradesh to obtain a false record to claim that the girl was an adult and not a minor.
"The school principal Prannath Mal tampered with the school register and gave a false birth record. The document falsely stated that the girl's birth year was 2003. We found the birth year had been changed from 2010 to 2003, thus making her 21-year- old," he said.
The SHO said after the girl registered an FIR, police had obtained her record in which she is a minor. When the second documents came up, police suspected it to be false and registered a separate case and a team was sent to Uttar Pradesh for verification.
"The team found that tampering was done in the school register. The register was seized and the principal was arrested. During interrogation, he said the girl's father had approached him to seek a false record. After this, the girl's father was also arrested on Saturday night," he said.
The SHO said the principal and the girl's father have been arrested in the second case related to tampering with documents.
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Broken relationships don't automatically amount to abetment of suicide: SC
New Delhi (PTI): Broken relationships, while emotionally distressing, do not automatically amount to abetment of suicide in the absence of intention leading to the criminal offence, the Supreme Court on Friday said.
The observations came from a bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and Ujjal Bhuyan in a judgement, which overturned the conviction of one Kamaruddin Dastagir Sanadi by the Karnataka High Court for the offences of cheating and abetment of suicide under the IPC.
"This is a case of a broken relationship, not criminal conduct," the judgment said.
Sanadi was initially charged under Sections 417 (cheating), 306 (abetment of suicide), and 376 (rape) of the IPC.
While the trial court acquitted him of all the charges, the Karnataka High Court, on the state's appeal, convicted him of cheating and abetment of suicide, sentencing him to five years imprisonment and imposing Rs 25,000 in fine.
According to the FIR registered at the mother's instance, her 21-year-old daughter was in love with the accused for the past eight years and died by suicide in August, 2007, after he refused to keep his promise to marry.
Writing a 17-page judgement, Justice Mithal analysed the two dying declarations of the woman and noted that neither was there any allegation of a physical relationship between the couple nor there was any intentional act leading to the suicide.
The judgement therefore underlined broken relationships were emotionally distressing, but did not automatically amount to criminal offences.
"Even in cases where the victim dies by suicide, which may be as a result of cruelty meted out to her, the courts have always held that discord and differences in domestic life are quite common in society and that the commission of such an offence largely depends upon the mental state of the victim," said the apex court.
The court further said, "Surely, until and unless some guilty intention on the part of the accused is established, it is ordinarily not possible to convict him for an offence under Section 306 IPC.”
The judgement said there was no evidence to suggest that the man instigated or provoked the woman to die by suicide and underscored a mere refusal to marry, even after a long relationship, did not constitute abetment.
