State of Karnataka v. Man Janna — Medical & Chemical Corroboration, Age Determination by X-Ray

Part of the Forensic Docket on Legal Desire Forensics — a conviction confirmed through final appeal, kept here as a method-of-crime record.

The facts

The case involved a prosecution under Section 376(1) IPC for rape, in which the testimony of the prosecutrix was said to be corroborated by independent witnesses, medical evidence, and the report of the chemical examiner.

The trial court convicted the accused, but the High Court acquitted him, disbelieving the prosecutrix’s testimony; the Supreme Court held that the nature of this offence, in the social context of the country, had to be taken into account when assessing that testimony.

A subsidiary issue concerned the age of the prosecutrix: while she and her father stated her age as 15 years, an X-ray report placed it between 16 and 18 years, and the doctor who gave that opinion admitted to some uncertainty.

On the State’s appeal, the conviction was restored.

Status: conviction upheld through final appeal.

Why this belongs in the Forensic Docket: A reminder that age determination through X-ray/radiological opinion carries an inherent margin of error that examiners should be candid about in testimony, and that medical and chemical corroboration of a survivor’s account should be weighed in context rather than mechanically discounted.

Case details

Read the full judgment (PDF), sourced from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open dataset (AWS Open Data Registry, CC-BY-4.0).

Explore more in the Forensic Docket or browse the full Forensics hub.