Shillong: The Meghalaya high court has upheld the conviction of former MLA Julius Kitbok Dorphang, who raped a 14-year-old girl in 2017.
The trial court had sentenced him to 25 years in jail for raping the minor girl.
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Dismissing the plea on Wednesday, a division bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice W Diengdoh said the term of imprisonment of 25 years awarded by the trial court does not call for any interference.
According to the court, the appellant was aged about 52 years at the time of the commission of repeated acts of rape on the same woman in Umiam.
“By imposing a sentence of 25 years of imprisonment, the trial court has ensured that by the time the appellant is let loose again in society, his libido would have been sufficiently lessened by age and adequately chastened by the punishment. He will then no longer be able to unleash his lust or indulge in any further virile bravado,” the court observed.
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The bench further said that nothing brought out by the defence in course of the trial could detract from the survivor’s credible account of how she suffered at the hands of the appellant.
“Indeed, one does not find any redeeming feature in the defence and the manner in which the survivor described to have been treated by the appellant herein has appropriately resulted in the tenure of imprisonment and the fine of Rs 15 lakh being slapped on the appellant by the trial court…
“There does not appear to be any glaring infirmity in the judgment of conviction or the consequent sentence pronounced against the appellant on the basis thereof. The trial court dealt with the material before it at great length and justly arrived at the right conclusion by using the appropriate tools of assessment,” the bench said.
The former MLA was arrested from an inter-state bus terminus (ISBT) at Gorchuk in Assam’s capital city Guwahati after complaints were filed against him by the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR).
The 14-year-old had identified him in a photograph as one of the accused, who allegedly raped her multiple times.
On August 13, 2021, Dorphang was sentenced to 25 years in jail by a special court in the Ri-Bhoi district for raping a minor girl in 2017 when he was a legislator.
He surrendered in 2007 as HNLC chairman, and in 2013, won the election from the Mawhati constituency as an Independent candidate.