On 4th January, 2001, a 15-year-old Dalit girl, along with her 13-year-old nephew, was collecting fodder for her family’s cattle, near land which belonged to a man called Kantennavar (caste unreported) in Navalagi, Karnataka. Here, they were surrounded by four upper-caste men, all in their twenties. They beat up the nephew. The nephew managed to run away to get the girl’s father for help The men then dragged the victim to the sugarcane fields nearby, where they gang-raped her. When the victim’s nephew and father came back, the rapists ran away. The specific castes of the rapists has not been reported.
On the same day, the victim filed a complaint. Three of the accused were arrested on 6th January, and the fourth accused was arrested on 9th January. Their medical examination was conducted and evidence was collected after their arrest. The four men were found to be guilty by a Trial Court in Bagalkot. This judgement was passed on October 28, 2003, two years after the incident The judgement sentenced the four men under Sections 376(2)(g) of the IPC which pertains to gangrape, and Section 3(2)(v) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 which gives an extended sentence for the same, when committed against a person belonging to a Scheduled Caste or Tribe. The four men were sentenced to imprisonment for ten years under the former for gangrape, and given life imprisonment under Prevention of Atrocities
Two years after the sentence ,in 2005, the accused appealed against this judgement at the Karnataka High Court. The accused claimed that the victim’s statement was unreliable due to minor discrepancies and lack of corroboration. However the court did not accept this and upheld the sentence for gangrape. The court cited the victim’s testimony as important evidence that need not be corroborated, and also highlighted the medical evidence and witness testimonies that supported her claims.
However, for the conviction under the Atrocities Act, the judgement erased the caste-based nature of the sexual violence, instead referring to the rape as a “lustful act of misguided youth”. The judgement ruled that the rape was a result of their lust and not on the ground that the victim belonged to a Scheduled caste. In doing so, the judgement erased the victim’s experience as a Dalit girl raped by upper-caste men, and justified the violence as being a result of “lust”. It erased the upper caste male’s abuse of power. This was done in order to reduce the punishment of the rapists as the sentence would have been extended if the Atrocities Act was applied. The imprisonment period for gangrape is maximum ten years and for Caste based atrocities a minimum of fourteen years . In this judgement, punishment for only sexual violence was seen as justified, whereas punishment for caste-based violence was erased.
