Kerala High Court upholds life term in schoolgirl assault case despite convict's death

The Kerala High Court upheld the life sentence of an autorickshaw driver convicted of sexually assaulting a schoolgirl he ferried to class. The ruling underlined the weight of a child survivor's consistent testimony and left the trial court verdict intact.Kochi,Oct 9, 2026 10:22 ISTThe Kerala High Court has upheld the conviction and life sentence of a 55-year-old autorickshaw driver for sexually assaulting a minor girl he used to take to school in 2012-13. The court also dismissed his appeal against the trial court order.A bench of Justices Raja Vijayaraghavan V and K V Jayakumar continued hearing the appeal even after the autorickshaw driver died while the case was pending. The High Court said it chose to proceed because the appeal was against a composite sentence of imprisonment and fine.Upholding the conviction and sentence, the bench said the testimony of the child, who was a Class 4 student at the time of the incident, was "coherent and consistent". The court said, "The alleged discrepancies do not, in our view, go to the root of the prosecution case or affect the core of her testimony. The trial court had the advantage of observing her demeanour while she was examined and of assessing her testimony in the context of the other evidence available on record. On an independent appraisal of the entire evidence, we find no material inconsistency or contradiction of such nature as would justify discarding her testimony."The bench further said that after independently assessing the evidence and the findings recorded by the trial court, it found no grounds to interfere with the conclusions reached by the Sessions Judge. "Accordingly, the appeal is dismissed, confirming the finding of guilt, conviction and sentence," the bench said. With this order, the High Court confirmed the trial court's finding of guilt and the life sentence awarded to the accused in the case relating to the sexual assault of the schoolgirl.- Ends