New Delhi, Feb 2 (IANS) A court here has acquitted a youth of charges of kidnapping and raping a girl after the victim’s ossification test declared her a major.
The court noted that the victim voluntarily left with the accused and solemnised marriage.
Additional Sessions Judge T.R. Naval, in an order Thursday, discharged accused Chander Shekhar of the charges of kidnapping the girl and raping her.
Doubting the age mentioned on the school certificate, the court relied on the victim’s ossification test report that concluded that the girl was not a minor at the time of the incident. The court discarded her date of birth mentioned in her school record.
The court also took note of documents like the Voter ID card and the Aadhaar Card, which suggest that the victim was a major at the time of the alleged offence.
“My decision in this regard also finds support by other evidence available on record, Aadhaar Card of the prosecutrix (victim) in which the year of her birth has been mentioned as 1994 and her identity card issued by the Election Commission of India in which her age has been shown as 18 years as on January 2003,” the court said.
The victim’s mother has claimed that the girl was 13 years old as per school record when the offence took place.
The prosecution alleged that the accused had kidnapped the victim in February 2013 and raped her.
In her statement recorded by the police and magistrate, the victim had given clean chit to the accused, stating that she had voluntarily left with him and solemnised marriage and thereafter, established physical relations.
The court said the charges of offence of rape are also not made out against the accused.