Previous marriage shows alleged POCSO victim is not minor; accused let off

S Shyam Prasad | NT

Bengaluru: A person accused in a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) was acquitted after it came to light that the alleged victim was not a minor.

It was revealed that she was married earlier and her age in the divorce she had sought was mentioned as 19. This led to the acquittal of the POCSO accused.

The case dates back to 2013 in Sira, Tumakuru. The alleged victim was waiting at the bus stop when the accused forcibly took her to a temple and married her.

Then he took her to a house in Shivamogga where they lived together for three months. Her pregnancy due to the relationship was terminated and the victim claimed she was abandoned there. She came back to Sira and filed a complaint against the accused.

The accused was booked for Rape under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and various other sections of the POCSO Act. After assessing the evidence of the witnesses examined by the prosecution and the documents as well as the material objects, the III Additional Sessions Judge and Special Court, Tumakuru, came to the conclusion that the prosecution failed to prove its case.

The acquittal was challenged by the prosecution with an appeal in the High Court in 2017. This was heard by the division bench of Justice Sreenivas Harish Kumar and Justice G Basavaraja which gave its judgement recently.

Married earlier

The High Court noted that there was evidence provided that the alleged victim was married earlier and was fighting a divorce case. In that case, her age was mentioned as 19 years.

Since the present incident was after the divorce case, she could not have been a minor.

“The trial court has expressed an opinion that PW1 (alleged victim) was given in marriage in the year 2010 itself. In the year 2013, PW1 initiated proceedings for divorce and in the petition filed for divorce she gave her age as 19 years. Having regard to this aspect of the matter, the trial court further held that if she gave her age as 19 years in the year 2013, obviously as on 17.05.2013 her age might be more than 18 years and in this view, she was not minor and therefore, the provisions of POCSO Act could not be attracted,” the HC noted.

The HC also said that the two were probably in a consensual relationship. Another witness “has stated that for 2 or 3 months PW1 and the accused lived in the house that belonged to her and they also showed her their marriage photograph.

In this view, the sexual intercourse between PW1 and the accused could be consensual one. For this reason, further inference that can be drawn is that there is no substance in the allegation that the accused kidnapped PW1 to marry against her will,” the HC said.

Dismissing the appeal filed by the prosecution, the HC said, “The trial court has discussed the evidence threadbare to draw the conclusions properly. There are no good grounds to interfere with the wellreasoned judgment of trial court, therefore the appeal is dismissed.” (CrLA 369/2017)