Rape Law in Transition, Part 6: Medical and DNA Evidence

This is Part 6 of nine of Rape Law in Transition, a study of section 376 of the Indian Penal Code, sections 63, 64 and 69 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and the trial of sexual offences from complaint to appeal. One part is published each day from 27 September to 5 October 2026.

VIII. Medical Evidence

Medical evidence corroborates; it rarely decides. Its absence will not defeat a credible prosecutrix, but medical findings that positively contradict her account frequently will.

Findings that do not support the prosecution

The absence of injury is not fatal. In Ranjit Hazarika v. State of Assam the Supreme Court held that neither the absence of injury to the private parts nor an intact hymen belies the prosecutrix’s testimony. A doctor’s bare opinion that no rape had been committed carries no weight when it is unsupported by reasons. And corroboration is a rule of prudence, not a rule of law.¹ In Phool Singh v. State of M.P. the victim was examined three days after the event and showed no injuries. Her testimony was credible, and the Court upheld the conviction on it.²

Delayed examination and no examination

Where the examination is delayed, two questions arise: why it was delayed, and whether the late findings fit the woman’s account.

In Rajesh Patel the prosecutrix was examined twelve days after the event, and the doctor was never called as a witness. Together with the unexplained delay in reporting, this led to an acquittal. The Court’s treatment of the late examination, in paragraph 11, should be read in full before it is relied on. In Sham Singh v. State of Haryana no semen was found and there were no injuries, and the doctor could not say when intercourse had occurred. The accused was acquitted.³

The examination requires the woman’s consent, and she may refuse it. It is submitted that a refusal is not fatal in itself. But it removes the corroboration the examination might have supplied, and the prosecution must then satisfy the stricter standard that applies to uncorroborated testimony (Part XIII). In Rajesh Kumar her unwillingness to be examined was among the circumstances on which the acquittal was upheld.

When medical evidence contradicts the prosecutrix

The weightier cases are those in which the medical evidence positively contradicts the account. In Ram Singh v. State of Himachal Pradesh the final medical report found no evidence of penetration, and the laboratory found no blood or semen on the clothing; the High Court had reversed an acquittal without referring to either report, and the Supreme Court restored the acquittal.⁴ In Sunil v. State of U.P. a child had been examined some ten hours after the event, and the doctor found no injury, no bleeding and an intact hymen. The allegation of bleeding appeared for the first time in her statement to the magistrate two months later. A Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court held that such a statement cannot supply facts not deposed to at the trial and that penetration had not been proved, and it altered the conviction to one for aggravated sexual assault.⁵

In Deepak the Supreme Court accepted that the absence of injury or semen does not by itself disprove the offence, but held that where the hymen was intact and the laboratory found neither semen nor male DNA, the medical evidence as a whole failed to support the prosecution.⁶ And in Paramjit Singh Bedi spermatozoa in the vaginal swab proved that intercourse had taken place, but, given the surrounding circumstances, did not prove rape.

The prohibited test

The so-called two-finger test has been prohibited in terms. In Lillu v. State of Haryana the Supreme Court held that it violates survivors’ rights to privacy, to physical and mental integrity, and to dignity. Even a finding favourable to the accused cannot found a presumption of consent.⁷ In Shailendra Kumar Rai the Court went further. It held that the test has no scientific basis. It noted that the guidelines of the Ministry of Health forbid a per vaginum examination for the purpose of establishing rape. And it directed that anyone who conducts the test is guilty of misconduct.⁸ A finding that the prosecutrix is “habituated”, or that her hymen is “old torn” and “admits two fingers”, should be disregarded. The prosecution should ask the court to disregard it, and the defence should not build on it.

Examination of the accused

The examination of the accused under section 52 of the Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita records three things: injuries on his body, the material taken for DNA profiling, and his general condition. The Supreme Court treats a failure to use it as a serious lapse.

In Krishan Kumar Malik v. State of Haryana undergarments that could have established the accused’s involvement conclusively were never sent to the laboratory, and the Court held that, after section 53A was enacted, the prosecution must bear the consequences of such an omission.⁹ In Chotkau v. State of U.P. a bench of three judges held that failing to produce such evidence, where the accused had put no obstacle in the way, leaves a gaping hole in the prosecution case, and that the hole is fatal where the eyewitness evidence is weak.¹⁰

The prosecution will answer with P. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu, a murder case in which the Court said that the absence of DNA evidence does not necessarily lead to an adverse inference.¹¹ In rape cases, however, Chotkau and Malik confine it.

The doctor in the witness box

It is submitted that the doctor should be cross-examined on four matters: the time of the examination, set against the time of the alleged act; the history recorded in the medico-legal report, set against the first information; the samples collected, set against those the laboratory actually received; and whether any finding rests on the prohibited test.

The report of a doctor who examines the victim is not among the reports of government scientific experts that may be read without their author under section 329 of the Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita. Unless the defence chooses to admit the report, the doctor should be called.

IX. DNA Evidence

A DNA match shows whose genetic material was found. It does not show how the material came to be there, or whether the woman consented. Its value depends entirely on the chain that links the sample to the report, and the courts now discard DNA evidence wherever that chain is not proved.

Collection, proof and weight

Material for DNA profiling is collected from the victim under section 184 and from the accused under section 52 of the Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita. The expert’s opinion is relevant under section 39 of the Sakshya Adhiniyam. The report of a government scientific expert is admissible under section 329 of the Sanhita, which also empowers the court to summon the expert.

The Supreme Court treats a DNA profile as valid and reliable. It recognises, however, that the result depends on the laboratory’s quality control and procedure.¹² Like all opinion evidence, its weight varies with the facts, and it has not yet reached the point at which it can be called infallible.¹³ Contamination is a real risk. Evidence that is not properly documented, collected, packaged and preserved cannot carry a high degree of probative value.¹⁴

The chain of custody

Three decisions define the modern law.

The first is Rahul, the Chhawla case, in which a bench of three judges acquitted the men convicted of the gang rape and murder of a young woman.¹⁵ Neither court below had examined the basis of the DNA reports, or whether the technique had been reliably applied. The samples had lain in the police store for days before being sent to the laboratory, so tampering could not be ruled out. The Court added that a trial judge must not act as a passive umpire.

The second is Kattavellai. The record there gave inconsistent accounts of who had held the vaginal swabs, and no account of how they had been stored. It also disclosed an unexplained delay of forty-one days before the swabs reached the laboratory.¹⁶ The DNA evidence was discarded, and the directions described in Part VI followed.

The third is Neerajpal, in which the Allahabad High Court applied these principles to a conviction for rape and murder and found five failures in the chain: the blood sample had been drawn by a technician who was never named or examined; the samples had remained with the police for about five days before dispatch; nothing showed where they had been kept, and the officer in charge of the store was not examined; no witness from the laboratory proved their receipt, preservation or analysis; and the DNA expert was not examined at all, and the report had merely been exhibited through the investigating officer.

The Court refused to accept a supplementary report produced at the appellate stage without recalling the expert. It declined to remand, because the appellant had already served some fourteen years, and it acquitted him.¹⁷

DNA inconclusive, and DNA present

An inconclusive result does not weaken an otherwise strong prosecution. In Suptan Marak v. State of Tripura the Supreme Court held that the unshaken and corroborated testimony of a child victim could not be disbelieved merely because the DNA result was inconclusive.¹⁸ But a failure to collect or send material that was available leaves the hole described in Chotkau and Malik.

Where DNA is present and consent is the issue, the match proves intercourse and nothing more (Paramjit Singh Bedi). It is submitted that the defence must decide deliberately whether to admit intercourse. An admission moves the trial onto consent. Where an aggravated clause of section 376(2) or section 64(2) has been charged, it also brings the presumption in section 120 of the Sakshya Adhiniyam into play.

Proving the chain

The chain must be proved link by link, each through its own witness and its own document; Appendix C lists the links.

The prosecution should prove every link, produce the chain-of-custody register, call the expert whenever the report is contested, and take the reference sample from the accused early. The defence should object whenever a report is merely exhibited through the investigating officer, apply for the expert to be summoned, call for the laboratory’s working notes, and put the forty-eight-hour rule and any missing register to the investigating officer.

Appendix C. Proving the DNA chain

Each link in the chain must be proved through its own witness and its own document. The last column states the question on which each link is usually contested.

Link	Witness	Document	Question to be answered
Collection from the victim	Examining doctor	Medico-legal report; list of samples	What was taken, how it was sealed, and the specimen of the seal
Collection from the accused	Doctor or technician	Report under s. 52 BNSS	Who drew the sample, and on whose request
Handover to the police	Constable or investigating officer	Receipt or seizure memo	Date, time, and whether the seal was intact
Deposit in the malkhana	Officer in charge of the store	Malkhana register	Dates in and out, and conditions of storage
Dispatch to the laboratory	Carrying constable	Dispatch memo; road certificate	Date of dispatch, and whether within 48 hours of collection
Receipt at the laboratory	Receiving officer	Receipt memo	Whether the seals were intact and matched the specimen
Analysis	DNA expert	Report; working notes; electropherograms	Method, controls, and the risk of contamination
Custody record	Investigating officer	Chain-of-custody register	Whether it exists, and whether every movement is countersigned

The series

Part 1: Which Law Governs
Part 2: The Anatomy of the Offence
Part 3: Consent and Will
Part 4: The False Promise of Marriage
Part 5: Investigation and Delay
Part 6: Medical and DNA Evidence (this part)
Part 7: Electronic Evidence and Bail
Part 8: Charge, Quashing and the Trial
Part 9: Final Arguments, Sentence and Appeal

Authored by Eshan Kumar Gupta, Advocate, Hon'ble Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench.

Ranjit Hazarika v. State of Assam, (1998) 8 SCC 635, paras 5 and 6. Indian Kanoon dates the judgment 28 February 1996 and carries no signature block, so the date and bench could not be confirmed from it. ↩
Phool Singh v. State of Madhya Pradesh, Criminal Appeal No. 1520 of 2021, decided on 1 December 2021 (M.R. Shah and Sanjiv Khanna JJ), paras 5.3 and 6. ↩
Sham Singh v. State of Haryana, AIR 2018 SC 3976, decided on 21 August 2018 (Mohan M. Shantanagoudar and N.V. Ramana JJ), paras 9 and 20. ↩
Ram Singh v. State of Himachal Pradesh, 2026 INSC 830, decided on 11 August 2026 (Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S. Chandurkar JJ), paras 9, 11–13 and 15–17. ↩
Sunil v. State of U.P., Criminal Appeal No. 4676 of 2022, decided on 17 July 2026 (Allahabad High Court, Division Bench: Salil Kumar Rai and Vinai Kumar Dwivedi JJ; no paragraph numbers on Indian Kanoon). ↩
Deepak v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2026 INSC 1008, decided on 17 September 2026 (Prashant Kumar Mishra and N.V. Anjaria JJ), paras 5.3, 5.4 and 7.3–7.8. ↩
Lillu @ Rajesh v. State of Haryana, (2013) 14 SCC 643, paras 12 and 13. ↩
State of Jharkhand v. Shailendra Kumar Rai, Criminal Appeal No. 1441 of 2022, paras 60, 64 and 68. ↩
Krishan Kumar Malik v. State of Haryana, (2011) 7 SCC 130 (Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma JJ), paras 40 and 45. ↩
Chotkau v. State of U.P., Criminal Appeal Nos. 361–362 of 2018, decided on 28 September 2022 (S. Abdul Nazeer, A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian JJ), paras 75 and 80. ↩
P. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu, (2019) 4 SCC 771 (N.V. Ramana, Mohan M. Shantanagoudar and Indira Banerjee JJ), para 33. The judgment is often cited by the name of the principal accused, Pattu Rajan. ↩
Anil @ Anthony Arikswamy Joseph v. State of Maharashtra, Criminal Appeal Nos. 1419–1420 of 2012, decided on 20 February 2014 (K.S. Radhakrishnan and Vikramajit Sen JJ), paras 15–17. ↩
P. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu, (2019) 4 SCC 771, para 33. ↩
Manoj v. State of Madhya Pradesh, Criminal Appeal Nos. 248–250 of 2015, decided on 20 May 2022 (U.U. Lalit, S. Ravindra Bhat and Bela M. Trivedi JJ). The case concerned murder, and the paragraph numbers of its DNA discussion on Indian Kanoon were not confirmed. ↩
Rahul v. State of Delhi, Criminal Appeal No. 611 of 2022, decided on 7 November 2022 (U.U. Lalit CJI, S. Ravindra Bhat and Bela M. Trivedi JJ), paras 31, 32 and 34. ↩
Kattavellai @ Devakar v. State of Tamil Nadu, 2025 INSC 845, paras 29, 30 and 35. ↩
Neerajpal v. State of U.P., Criminal Appeal No. 372 of 2018, paras 57–61 and 74. ↩
Suptan Marak v. State of Tripura, Criminal Appeal arising from SLP (Crl.) No. 19059 of 2025, decided on 21 July 2026 (Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar JJ), para 4. It is a signed order rather than a reported judgment, and carries correspondingly less weight. ↩