Meghalaya HC upholds 20‑year jail term, rejects consent plea in rape of 16‑year‑old sister‑in‑law

The Meghalaya High Court has dismissed the appeal of a man sentenced to 20 years in prison for raping his 16-year-old sister-in-law on two separate occasions in October 2020, ruling that his claim of a consensual relationship offered him no legal protection since the victim was a minor.

Rishan Marwein, who was 21 at the time and married to the survivor's elder sister with two young children, was convicted by the Special POCSO Court in Nongstoin in September 2023 under Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. He was fined Rs 30,000 in addition to the custodial sentence.

The facts, as they emerged during trial, paint a picture of calculated betrayal. On 12 October 2020, the accused picked the survivor up from school, telling her he would take her for lunch. He brought along her cousin brother — also her classmate — to lend the outing an air of normalcy.

At Aroma Restaurant, after food and chocolates, the accused separated the survivor from her cousin, took her to an isolated room, placed a metal ring on her finger, and later dragged her into the toilet where he sexually assaulted her.

Five days later, on October 17, he called the survivor to his home while his wife was at work and assaulted her again. After this second incident, when the survivor told him she wanted nothing more to do with him, "the appellant stood up, took a blade and threatened to cut himself to death if she left him." She left anyway.

The incidents came to light on October 18 when the survivor's father noticed unusual behaviour between her and the accused at a family wedding. When confronted, she disclosed both assaults. Her sister — the accused's own wife — filed the FIR after hearing the account, and later testified that she "suffered mental trauma and had to seek medical help."

The wife's evidence was notable. While she admitted in cross-examination that she believed her sister had been a consenting party, she also confirmed she had been angry enough to file the complaint. The court noted that her cross-examination raised no challenge to her examination-in-chief, and crucially, there was no dispute about the survivor's age of 16.

The defence leaned heavily on the consensual nature of the relationship, citing Supreme Court precedents. The court dismissed this. "Under the POCSO Act, consent given by a child below the age of 18 years is irrelevant and immaterial," the bench stated. The cited judgments, it added, were "clearly distinguishable and will not apply to the case in hand."

The bench — Chief Justice Revati Mohite Dere and Justice W Diengdoh — was particularly pointed about the accused's position as a family member. Despite being "a married man with two children," the court said, he "abused the sanctity of the relationship" and "taken advantage of the survivor's young age." In his Section 313 statement, notably, the accused had denied both the assaults and any consensual relationship — contradicting the very defence his counsel was running.

Medical evidence confirmed penetrative sexual assault. The survivor's birth certificate, unchallenged throughout trial and appeal, established she was 16 at the time.

The trial court had recommended Rs 1,00,000 in compensation from the Meghalaya State Legal Services Authority for the survivor's welfare and rehabilitation. The High Court directed the District Legal Services Authority, West Khasi Hills, to confirm within six weeks whether this amount has been paid. A compliance hearing is scheduled for June 18, 2026.