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The Tripura High Court stated the judgment that unless the procedure is compromised, the accuracy of a DNA test result cannot be doubted. With this, the court dismissed the petition filed by a man convicted for 10 years of rigorous life imprisonment (plus a Rs 1 lakh fine) for raping a minor girl.
The convict-petitioner, Bahadur Debbarma, had stated that just the determination of parentage would not be sufficient to hold him guilty for rape. He said that in the decision of the Gujarat High Court in the State of Gujarat vs Jayantibhai Somabhai Khant in which it was held that just establishment of the identity of the father of the fetus, in any case, would not be merely sufficient to record conviction who is accused of rape. It was also stated that there had been no cross-examination of the doctor in respect of the process of DNA profiling nor its result has been questioned.
The prosecution rebutted the contentions which were stated by the petitioner and said that in the case of Gujarat High Court, the victim herself did not support the prosecution case. However, in this present case, the victim has categorically stated that she was raped by the appellant.
After hearing from both the sides the bench of Justices S. Talapatra and SG Chattopadhyay observed: “In Jayantibhai Somabhai Khant Gujarat High Court has expressed certain reservations even after seeing that the DNA result can be of great value to the investigators, prosecutors as well as to the court in either including or excluding a person from involving a particular act. But as the victim did not support the prosecution case by stating that she was violated, the Gujarat High Court had stated that mere determination of parentage would not be merely sufficient to record conviction who is accused of rape. The said report has also clearly stated that they were not laying down any proposition that in every case the DNA result must be corroborated by independent evidence. The science of DNA profiling has been so perfected that unless the procedure is compromised, the accuracy of the result cannot be doubted.
The doctor said about the process that he had followed the DNA extraction and it's categorically matching. Hence, there cannot be any doubt about the results which is recorded in the report. The result of the DNA test cannot be receded as there had been no cross-examination or denial,” the court said.
Lastly, the court said that the rehabilitation of the victim of rape is the state’s responsibility and thus issued a direction for compensation to the victim under Section 357A of the CrPC in terms of the Victim Compensation Scheme.
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