Capital confirmation judgments are rare, and rarer still are those that engage seriously with why victims of domestic abuse stay silent. On 24 September 2026, in Waris v. State of Madhya Pradesh (Criminal Appeal Nos. 429-430 of 2020), the Supreme Court, speaking through Justice Vikram Nath, confirmed the conviction and death sentence of a man for the repeated rape and eventual murder of his six-year-old stepdaughter inside the matrimonial home — and, in doing so, delivered one of the Court’s most considered treatments of the sole related eyewitness, the curative cross-examination, and the behaviour of abused women under coercive control.
The prosecution case
The appellant was convicted of repeatedly sexually assaulting his stepdaughter, a child of about six, within the home, and of throttling her to death on 23 April 2018. The child’s mother was the solitary eyewitness. The post-mortem examination independently established a homicidal death by manual strangulation and fresh genital injury indicative of recent penetrative assault. The trial court convicted and imposed the death penalty; the High Court confirmed; the matter reached the Supreme Court by appeal.
The defect at trial — and its cure
The most consequential procedural question was a defect familiar to every criminal practitioner: legal aid counsel had been appointed for the accused on the day of the crucial examination itself, with no opportunity to prepare. A conviction resting on evidence tested by unprepared counsel is vulnerable. The Supreme Court’s answer was a directed further cross-examination, conducted on 14 June 2025 with proper protections and full access to the record — a curative course that repaired the prejudice without discarding years of proceedings. The judgment treats this as an adequate remedy where the core evidence survives properly-armed cross-examination.
The sole eyewitness who was also the victim’s mother
The defence attacked the mother’s testimony from every conventional direction. The Court’s responses form a compact statement of the law of witness appreciation:
| Objection | The Court’s answer |
|---|---|
| Single, related witness | Quality over quantity; her account was corroborated by objective medical evidence, telephone records and the particularity of descriptions matching autopsy findings. |
| Omissions from police statements | Background facts omitted earlier were not material contradictions; the fundamental accusation stayed consistent from the earliest statements, and elaboration at trial is unexceptional for truthful witnesses. |
| Internal contradictions | Dissolved on contextual reading — her description of “control” rather than absolute incarceration rendered the apparent inconsistencies consistent. |
| Her silence and failure to flee | Evaluated against behavioural science and national survey data showing roughly three-quarters of abused Indian women never report; such conduct reflects trauma responses, not fabrication. |
The willingness to test credibility arguments against empirical evidence about how abuse victims actually behave — rather than against an idealised witness who reports immediately and escapes at the first opportunity — is likely to be the most cited feature of this judgment in trials across the country.
Sentence
On sentence, the Court confirmed the death penalty, holding the case within the rarest of rare category: the repeated violation of a small child by the very person standing in a father’s position, inside the home that should have been her sanctuary, followed by her strangulation and the concealment of the crime. The conviction under Sections 376(2)(f), 376(2)(n), 376AB and 302 IPC, together with Sections 5 and 6 of the POCSO Act, was affirmed in full.
What practitioners should take from the decision
Three lessons travel beyond the facts. First, curative directions — including further cross-examination years after trial — are now an established response to defective legal aid representation, and counsel seeking retrials on that ground must show prejudice that such a cure cannot reach. Second, Section 106 of the Evidence Act continues to matter in domestic-setting offences: what happened inside a home is especially within the knowledge of those who lived there. Third, attacks on a victim-witness’s delay or demeanour must now reckon with a Supreme Court precedent that treats those very features as consistent with truthfulness in coercive domestic environments.
This article is for general information only and is not legal advice or a solicitation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a conviction rest on a single related witness?
Yes. Section 134 of the Evidence Act — carried into the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam — has never required a plurality of witnesses. What the courts require is reliability. Here the mother’s account was tested against the post-mortem findings, telephone records and the particularity of her descriptions, and it held.
What was the defect in the trial, and how was it cured?
Legal aid counsel had been appointed for the accused on the very day of the key examination, without preparation. Rather than order a retrial years later, the Court directed a further cross-examination in June 2025 with full access to the record, holding that this cured the prejudice while preserving the evidence.
Why did the mother’s delay in reporting not destroy her credibility?
The Court assessed her silence against established behavioural science and empirical data on under-reporting of domestic abuse in India, holding that delayed disclosure and failure to flee are common trauma responses under coercive control, not indicators of fabrication.
What offences were affirmed?
Sections 376(2)(f), 376(2)(n) and 376AB IPC for the sexual assaults, Section 302 IPC for the murder, Section 201 IPC for causing disappearance of evidence, and Sections 5 and 6 of the POCSO Act. The death sentence was confirmed as falling within the rarest of rare category.