Incidents of child abuse have also risen exponentially since the Covid-19 pandemic, with new and insidious forms of cybercrime rearing their ugly heads. Any person in charge of an institution who fails to report the commission of a sexual offence relating to a subordinate is liable to be punished and the same issue was held in the judgement passed by a single bench judge Hon’ble Dr Yogendra Kumar Srivastava, J In the matter – Ravi And 2 Others Versus State Of U.P. [APPLICATION U/S 482 No. – 5009 of 2021] dealt with an issue mentioned above.
The present application under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 19731 has been filed seeking to quash the entire proceedings of Criminal Case No.2377 of 2020 pending before the Special Judge, POCSO, Aligarh as well as summoning order dated 17.10.2020 arising out of Case Crime No.428 of 2019, under Sections 363, 366, 376D of the Indian Penal Code2 and Section 5/6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2013, Police Station Khair, District Aligarh in terms of which learned Judge has summoned the applicant no.1, under Sections 366, 376D IPC and Section 5/6 POCSO Act and also summoned the applicant nos. 2 and 3, under Sections 363, 366, 376D IPC and Section 5/6 POCSO Act, Police Station Khair, District Aligarh.
A plain reading of the FIR discloses the age of the victim to be less than 18 years. The statement of the victim recorded under Section 164 of the Code supports the FIR version and also discloses the offence under section 376 IPC. The aforementioned material having been placed along with the police report, the Magistrate, upon taking notice thereof, has rightly held that the case would be covered within the ambit of the POCSO Act and in view of the procedure provided under section 33(1), the matter would be cognizable by the designated Special Court without the accused being committed to it for trial.
The court perused the facts and arguments presented in the case the order of summoning passed by the Special Judge, POCSO and also the proceedings of the criminal case, of which quashed is sought, being in accord with the scheme of the statutory enactment, cannot be said to suffer from any illegality so as persuade this Court to exercise its inherent jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Code.
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Judgment reviewed by Sakshi Mishra
