Kochi, Jul 22 The Kerala High Court on Wednesday commuted the life term awarded to a 33-year-old preacher for raping a 16-year-old girl to 10 years.
While upholding the conviction of the accused, a bench of Justices Raja Vijayaraghavan V and K V Jayakumar said that the sentence given by the sessions court was "harsh and excessive".
The bench noted that the offence was committed in 2014 much before section 376 (rape) of the IPC was amended in 2018 to enhance the minimum punishment from seven years to 10 years.
The accused was convicted for the offences under section 4 (penetrative sexual assault) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and section 376 IPC and both carried a maximum punishment of life sentence.
The bench also noted that in the instant case the sessions court had not given any reasons for giving the maximum sentence to the accused.
"The cardinal principle of sentencing policy is that the sentence imposed on an offender should reflect the crime he has committed and it should be proportionate to the gravity of the offence. It is, therefore, the duty of every court to award a proper sentence having regard to the nature of the offence and the manner in which it was executed or committed, etc," the High Court said.
It further said that on considering the facts and circumstances of the case and the law as it stood before the 2018 amendment, it would be appropriate to reduce the sentence of life imprisonment given to the accused under section 4 of the POCSO Act to a term of 10 years.
In his appeal against the conviction and sentence, the accused had claimed that he and the girl were in a romantic relationship and the sexual intercourse was consensual, not a forced one as alleged by the prosecution.
The victim, who was studying in secondary school in 2014, had claimed that the accused used to come to her house and had expressed his love towards her and stated that he would marry her.
