High Court of Madras decision on POCSO Act When Procedural Lapses Do Not Cause Any Dent In Prosecution, Trial Will Not Be Vitiated.
Title: The Inspector of Police v. xxx Father of the victim child
Case No. : R.T. No.2 of 2022
Decided on ; 21.11.2023
CORAM : THE HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE S.S.SUNDAR AND THE HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE SUNDER MOHAN
Introduction
For the sake of convenience, the parties are referred to as per their ranking before the trial Court. The victim for the sake of anonymity is referred to as ‘victim’. The victim girl first informed about the alleged sexual assaults to her classmate and then to PW3, who was working as a teacher in a school, where the victim was studying.
Fact of the Case
It is the case of the prosecution that the accused are the father(A1) and mother (A2) of the victim-PW2; that the father-A1 had committed the offence of penetrative sexual assault on the minor daughter ever since she was 7 years old, till she attained her puberty at the age of 12; that A1 always insisted that the minor daughter should sleep next to him without dress and would remove her clothes, sexually abused her by squeezing her breast, putting his mouth on her breast, putting clips used for drying clothes on her vagina, penetrating his hands into her vagina, inserted small bottles and small pipes into her vagina; that after the victim attained 12 years A1 also abused the victim child by penetrating his penis into her mouth and thereby committed inappropriate sexual abuses to the victim child; that thereafter, committed penetrative sexual assault on several occasions; that the victim minor child informed the same to her mother-A2, who did not care to take any action on that; that due to repeated penetrative sexual assault, the victim child got pregnant once; that to abort the foetus, A1 kicked on her back .
Case Analysis and judgment
she is convicted for the offence under Section 21(l) of the POCSO Act and as regards the sentence of imprisonment for the said offence under the said section, we confirm the sentence of six months imposed by the trial Court. As regards the sentence for the offence under Section 75 of the JJ Act, considering the offence, the nature of the allegation against A2, the circumstances in which she was living and the fact that she was in a helpless situation as has been brought out in the evidence, we are inclined to reduce the sentence imposed by the trial Court, to the period of sentence already undergone.
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Written by Nimisha Sunny