Karnataka high court upholds acquittal of ex-French diplomat of raping minor daughter | Bengaluru News

Bengaluru: The high court has upheld a trial court’s decision to acquit a former French consulate official in Bengaluru, accused of sexually assaulting his minor daughter, citing that the survivor’s mother was responsible for tutored testimony and inconsistent evidence.The father, who served as a consul attaché, had been accused by his Indian wife of sexually abusing their daughter on three occasions — in April 2010, May 2012, and on June 13, 2012 — when the child was just under four years old. A sessions court had acquitted him in April 2017. The child’s mother had challenged the acquittal.A division bench of Justices Sreenivas Harish Kumar and KS Hemalekha rejected the appeal, citing multiple inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case. The court found that the DNA evidence did not support the allegations: while the father’s DNA was found on some items of clothing, the absence of the child’s DNA on the same articles raised concerns about possible tampering to frame the accused.The bench also noted the prosecution’s failure to produce the family’s domestic help as a witness, despite her potential role as a key observer. This omission, the court held, weakened the prosecution’s case and lent weight to the defence argument that the original acquittal had been rightly granted.Significant doubt was also cast on the testimony of the child who admitted that her mother had coached her and offered rewards in exchange for specific statements. The court found her recollections inconsistent, with clear memory gaps about the incidents in question, while being able to recall unrelated events. The judges concluded that the testimony lacked the reliability necessary to overturn the acquittal.Further, the court found the medical reports inconclusive. It observed that symptoms recorded—such as the presence of E. coli bacteria, erythema, pustules, itching, and pinworms—could be linked to non-sexual infections. The medical evidence, it held, did not support a case of sexual abuse.In their ruling, the judges reiterated the established Supreme Court principles that where victim testimony is inconsistent and medical evidence is not corroborative, the benefit of doubt must go to the accused. They concluded that the complaint appeared to have been structured with a motive and lacked credible evidentiary backing.Accordingly, the high court dismissed the appeal and affirmed the trial court’s acquittal of the father.