Evidence from visually-impaired not inferior: Court

Confirming the conviction and sentence of seven years’ RI passed by the Mahila Court, Chennai, against an auto driver who sexually assaulted a visually-challenged girl in Villvakkam who had hired the auto to take her home from a music institute, Justice RMT Teekaa Raman, said: “In the case on hand, the victim’s blindness meant she had no visual contact with the world. Her primary mode of identifying those around her, therefore, is by their voice and so her testimony is entitled to equal weight as that of a prosecutrix who could have been able to visually identify the appellant.” 

“Law does not distinguish the evidence of an able-bodied person with that of the differently enabled. Merely because of the factum of disability, her evidence cannot be treated as inferior to that of an able-bodied person. To do so could be negating the Constitution principle of the right of equality,” the court stressed. 

While the counsel for the appellant (auto driver) sought the sentence reduced, Justice Teekaa Raman said: “This Court finds the accused to be a ‘heartless’ person, having capitalised the situation on the helplessness of a visually-challenged person, and not entitled to reduction of the sentence, not even for a day.” 

The court while dismissing the appeal by the auto diver also directed the Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority to grant compensation of a lakh of rupees to the victim girl under the Tamil Nadu Victim Compensation Scheme.