New Delhi, Jan 10 (PTI) Delhi High Court has upheld the life imprisonment awarded to a man for raping a two-year-old girl, saying there was no reason not to rely on the testimony of the victim's mother.

A bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Rajnish Bhatnagar dismissed an appeal filed by the convict Kamlesh challenging his conviction and life term awarded by a trial court for raping the toddler in 2012.

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The high court said the trial court had observed that the evidence of the child's mother did not suffer from any material variations or contradictions from her earlier statement and placed complete reliance on her testimony.

"We find no reason to not rely upon the testimony of prosecution witness (PW) 2 -- mother of the victim and the reliance placed by the trial court on the testimony of PW 2 while arriving at a conclusion that the appellant (convict) has committed the offence against the minor child as narrated by PW 2 cannot be faulted with," the bench said.

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It said the contradictions pointed out by the convict's counsel in the testimony of the child's mother were not sufficient to discard the entire statement.

"One cannot lose sight of the fact that even the testimony of a hostile witness is not to be discarded in toto. The court has enough power to sift the chaff from the grain. In the instant case, one cannot ignore the fact that PW 2 is the mother of a two-year-old minor child who has been violated by the appellant who was seen by PW 2 holding the victim child in his lap and then apologising for his wrong act.

"Therefore, in such a situation the mother of the minor child would be tormented and traumatised and then some contradictions are bound to occur in her testimony. The contradictions which can shake the testimony of a witness are of such a nature which goes to strike at the root of the prosecution's case," the bench added.

According to the prosecution, Kamlesh, who was residing as a tenant in the building in which the victim's family also lived on rent, raped the girl on October 7, 2012, in west Delhi's Tikri Kalan area.

The trial court convicted the man for rape and awarded him a life term in October 2018. Kamlesh challenged the order before the high court.

The high court also rejected his contention that there was a delay in lodging the FIR in the case.

The bench considered the observations made by the trial court on the aspect of delay in lodging the FIR and said, "We are of the opinion that the findings of the trial court holding that the delay has been satisfactorily explained by the mother of the victim as well as the prosecution cannot be faulted with. Therefore, no benefit can be given to the appellant in this regard."

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)