Delhi High Court Upholds 20 Year Jail Term For Father Convicted For Repeatedly Raping Minor Daughter

The Delhi High Court has recently upheld a jail term of 20 years of rigorous imprisonment awarded to a father convicted for repeatedly raping his 17 year old minor daughter.

Justice Sanjeev Narula said that the sentence was just and proportionate, reflecting both the gravity of the crime and the statutory mandate of POCSO Act.

“The testimony of the Prosecutrix, though not flawless, is credible on the core allegation and stands corroborated by the DNA report. No motive for false implication has been demonstrated, and the presence of the appellant's semen in her genital samples is incontrovertible scientific proof of assault,” the Court said.

It dismissed the father's appeal against the trial court order of conviction and awarding him sentence in the case registered in 2018. In November last year, the trial court had convicted him for the offences punishable under 376(2)(n)(k) of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, and Section 6 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. He was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment of 20 years.

Upholding the father's sentence and conviction, the Court said that the aggravating features were stark. It added that the offence was not a solitary lapse but a sustained course of sexual assaults by a biological father upon his minor daughter, accompanied by threats and coercion.

“Such conduct, which violates both law and the most sacred familial trust, justifies a punishment substantially above the minimum. The sentence of twenty years' rigorous imprisonment thus cannot be said to be either illegal or excessive. On the contrary, it is a proportionate response to the gravity of the crime, firmly anchored in the statutory scheme and consistent with established legal principles.”

The minor alleged that over a considerable period, her father had subjected her to sexual assault while she was asleep and had used threats and violence to thwart disclosure. He was arrested in May 2018 after the minor was found pregnant on her examination in a hospital.

Justice Narula observed that the trial court had correctly held that although the father was not shown to be the source of the pregnancy, the presence of his semen in the minor's vaginal and cervical samples was conclusive of penetrative sexual assault during the relevant period.

The absence of paternity does not erase the offence; it merely rules out one possible consequence of it, the Court said.

The father made a submission that the Trial Court lacked power to impose a fixed term of 20 years' rigorous imprisonment under the pre-2019 amendment under Section 6 of POCSO Act.

On this, the Court said: “The language used by it i.e., “not less than ten years, but which may extend to life” is the textbook signal of a continuum from a fixed minimum to a maximum, within which the court exercises sentencing discretion. The Appellant's reading would, in effect, re-draft Section 6 POCSO on the model of Section 307 IPC, something the text does not bear.”

“Between those poles, the judicial task is to grade punishment to culpability: there will be cases plainly warranting life, while others, though more aggravated that the minimum, may not call for imprisonment for life. To deny courts the ability to impose, say, 15 or 20 years, would collapse this graded scheme into an all-or nothing choice, something which is neither textually compelled nor normatively sound,” it added.

The Court concluded that sentencing is not an arithmetical exercise but a solemn judicial function requiring a balance between individual circumstances and society's call for justice.

“Where the victim is a minor daughter and the offender her own father, the breach is doubly grave, inflicting deep physical and psychological trauma and shattering her sense of security within the home. In this context, the punishment imposed affirms the dignity of the survivor, reflects society's abhorrence of such crimes, and upholds the protective mandate of POCSO,” it said.

Title: BS v. STATE (NCT OF DELHI

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 1201

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