By way of background, a government school teacher was accused by a class 8 student of raping her at his residence after school. She also alleged that the teacher threatened that she would not be allowed to take her exams if she disclosed the incident to anyone else.
The alleged incident was said to have taken place in July 2015. However, the complaint was only made 38 days later, in August 2015.
Such an unexplained inordinate delay in lodging the complaint led the High Court to doubt the prosecution’s case.
“If the prosecution fails to explain the delay, there is possibility of embellishments in the prosecution version on account of such delay which would be fatal to the prosecution making the prosecution case highly doubtful and concocted entitling the accused benefit of doubt leading to his acquittal”, reads the judgment,” the Court said.
Source: Barandbench
