A corrected date, a 19-day delay and no external injury did not undo the case: the Kerala High Court upholds 10-year term for rape of an elderly woman whom the convict had told he would rid of evil spirits, finding her testimony reliable.
Kochi: Confirming the verdict of a Fast Track Special Court, the Kerala High Court has dismissed the appeal of a 61-year-old man convicted of raping an elderly woman, then aged 73, after telling her he would remove evil spirits from her body, and has ordered him to surrender and undergo the 10-year rigorous imprisonment [Muhammed v. State of Kerala]. The survivor’s identity is withheld.
Justice A. Badharudeen pronounced the judgment on October 12, 2026 in Crl.A. No. 2143 of 2024, after hearing the appeal on September 17, 2026. The challenge was to the September 11, 2024 judgment of the Fast Track Special Court II, Thrissur, in S.C. No. 454 of 2023.
What the defence argued
The appellant said the survivor first gave the date of the incident as October 7, 2022 and, when recalled, said October 8, which he called a material improvement. He also relied on the 19-day delay in lodging the FIR, the absence of any external injury in the medical examination, the lack of a separate Section 65B certificate for the phone records, and alleged enmity arising from a property sale, spoken to by the survivor’s son. The State replied that the date was corrected by an additional statement soon after the first, and that the delay was explained.
A date set right the next day
Justice Badharudeen accepted that a victim’s inability to state the date of an assault, or a change from an earlier version, can in some cases be a material omission. Here, though, the first date was recorded by mistake or memory loss, he held, and it was corrected the next day, so it was not material. He was critical of the trial:
“In fact, improper prosecution and failure of the Public Prosecutor in getting her version as to the date of occurrence as 08.10.2022 is to be noted.”
Even so, the Court said, her account did not become unbelievable, because it was supported by three phone calls between the two numbers on October 8, 2022.
The case that went to trial
According to the prosecution, the appellant went to the woman’s house in October 2022 and, saying that evil spirits were on her body and that this was the treatment, sexually assaulted her. The trial court convicted him under Sections 354A(1)(i) and 376(1) of the IPC, sentencing him to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1,00,000 for rape, and to three years and a fine of Rs 25,000 for the sexual harassment offence, the sentences to run concurrently, with the fine, if realised, to go to the survivor.
Thirteen prosecution witnesses and one defence witness, the survivor’s son, were examined. The High Court recorded that the survivor, her two daughters and a relative gave evidence, that a call detail record with a certificate showed three calls between the accused and the survivor on the day of the incident, and that she had told a lawyer working with the panchayat’s Jagratha Samithy about the assault.
Nineteen days, and no injury
The survivor, the Court noted, had said she decided to give her statement only after speaking to her son abroad and her daughters. On the delay it held:
“Since the delay in lodging the FIR inasmuch as sexual molestation of an aged lady is concerned, the explanation offered is sufficient and even otherwise in case of sexual molestation, a short delay shall not be the reason to disbelieve the case of prosecution”
The doctor had examined her 20 days after the incident and saw no external injury; the doctor said any injury caused would have healed by then, and the Court declined to treat the absence of injury as proof that she was lying. The call detail record already carried the required certificate, so the Section 65B objection failed, and the contradictions marked through other witnesses were held not to be material.
Enmity as a defence
The survivor’s son had spoken of a dispute over the sale of property in which the accused had helped him. The Court noted that he did not deny the assault itself and, being admittedly on bad terms with his mother, could not be relied on to disbelieve her account of a fact known fully to her alone. It also recorded that the accused had visited her house three times before the incident, on the pretext of healing her infirmities.
Surrender, and what follows
With no reason to interfere with conviction or sentence, the Court dismissed the appeal. The order suspending the sentence and granting bail is cancelled, along with the bail bond. The appellant must surrender before the Special Court to undergo the sentence forthwith, failing which that court is to execute it, and the Registry is to send it a copy of the judgment.
What the ruling reaffirms
An appellate court weighing a survivor’s evidence will not let a corrected date, a short and explained delay, or the lapse of time before a medical examination defeat a conviction when the account is consistent and backed by other material, such as the phone records here.
The Court also drew attention to the prosecution’s conduct at trial, noting the lapse in not eliciting the correct date at the first examination. Where the offender claims spiritual or healing powers, the judgment shows the pretext treated as no defence and a survivor’s reason for a brief delay, such as consulting family, treated as sufficient.
Case Title: Muhammed v. State of Kerala [Crl.A. No. 2143 of 2024]
Bench: Justice A. Badharudeen, Kerala High Court
Date of Judgment: October 12, 2026
Appearances: Advocates Balamurali K.P., Manu Tom and others for the appellant; Public Prosecutor M.A. Shihab for the State