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Long after a boy, then 19 years old, eloped with his 16-year-old girlfriend from rural Punjab and the two had sex, the boy — now a man — stands convicted for rape by the Supreme Court and will spend the next three years behind bars.
The girl being a minor, her consent to sex did not help mitigate the boy's offence. For, law terms sex with a minor, with or without her consent, as rape.
What saved him from a harsher sentence of seven years was a leniency plea from the girl's father. The boy, Rakesh Kumar, had been arrested after the girl's father accused him of kidnapping and raping his minor daughter.
A trial court in Patiala convicted Rakesh Kumar and sentenced him to seven years' imprisonment, despite the girl confessing that she had sex as she was in love with him.
Kumar appealed in the Punjab and Haryana high court, which said it would be harsh to send the boy behind bars, long after the incident, for seven years just because two youngsters in love had sex.
While maintaining the conviction, it reduced the sentence to the period already undergone and asked the authorities to release him. The main ground for leniency, as mentioned in the high court judgment, was the rural background of the boy.
The state government appealed against the judgment saying rape convicts could not be let off lightly as it could encourage other such offenders.
A Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat and M K Sharma was caught in a dilemma as on one hand a heinous crime like rape could not be condoned, while on the other, there was a confession from the girl and a plea from her father to be lenient to the convict.
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The girl being a minor, her consent to sex did not help mitigate the boy's offence. For, law terms sex with a minor, with or without her consent, as rape.
What saved him from a harsher sentence of seven years was a leniency plea from the girl's father. The boy, Rakesh Kumar, had been arrested after the girl's father accused him of kidnapping and raping his minor daughter.
A trial court in Patiala convicted Rakesh Kumar and sentenced him to seven years' imprisonment, despite the girl confessing that she had sex as she was in love with him.
Kumar appealed in the Punjab and Haryana high court, which said it would be harsh to send the boy behind bars, long after the incident, for seven years just because two youngsters in love had sex.
While maintaining the conviction, it reduced the sentence to the period already undergone and asked the authorities to release him. The main ground for leniency, as mentioned in the high court judgment, was the rural background of the boy.
The state government appealed against the judgment saying rape convicts could not be let off lightly as it could encourage other such offenders.
A Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat and M K Sharma was caught in a dilemma as on one hand a heinous crime like rape could not be condoned, while on the other, there was a confession from the girl and a plea from her father to be lenient to the convict.
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