Use of the words ‘samband banaya’ is not sufficient to establish an offence under Section 3 of the POCSO Act or under Section 376 IPC, the Court held.
The Delhi High Court recently acquitted a man serving life imprisonment on charges of rape and sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and Indian Penal Code [Sahjan Ali Through Parokar Banu Khatun v. State Through Sho Ps Madhu Vihar].
A Bench of Justices Prathiba M Singh and Amit Sharma observed that the survivor’s statement does not indicate sexual intercourse or sexual assault.
“The survivor, in fact, used the phrase ‘physical relations’, but there is no clarity as to what she meant by using the said phrase. Even the use of the words ‘samband banaya’ is not sufficient to establish an offence under Section 3 of the POCSO Act or under Section 376 IPC. Though consent would not matter if the girl is a minor under the POCSO Act, the phrase ‘physical relations’ cannot be converted automatically into sexual intercourse let alone sexual assault,” the Court stated.
The Court noted that the minor did not categorically state that there was any sexual assault, and that there was no evidence to support such finding.
“The fact that she voluntarily went with the Appellant is also not disputed. However, the leap from physical relations or samband to sexual assault and then to penetrative sexual assault is one which has to be established on record by means of evidence, and the same cannot be presumed or deduced as an inference.”
“In such cases, the benefit of doubt ought to be in favour of the accused,” the Court added.
The case arose from a complaint filed by the minor girl’s mother that she had been lured and kidnapped from her home by an unknown person. The minor later told the police that there was a ‘physical relationship’ between them.
On the basis of this statement, the trial court convicted the man and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
