Delhi HC Upholds Father’s 20-Year POCSO Sentence For Sexually Assaulting 3-Year-Old Daughter, Finds Seven-Month Reporting Delay Explained

The appellant was convicted under Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO Act), for allegedly inserting his finger into the private part of his approximately three-year-old daughter in November 2021.

The child’s mother testified that the child disclosed the incident after the mother returned from work and that she later observed slight bleeding.

The mother did not report the incident or seek medical care at the time; the matter came to the police’s attention in June 2022, when the child was taken to hospital.

The appellant denied the allegations and claimed that the child had been tutored by her mother, who allegedly wished to leave him for another man.

He also relied on his paralysis, the delay in reporting, and the absence of corroborative medical findings.

The Trial Court convicted him under Section 6 and sentenced him to twenty years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of ₹10,000.

He appealed against the conviction and sentence.

Section 3(b) of the POCSO Act includes insertion of any object or body part, other than the penis, into a child’s vagina, urethra, or anus; under Section 5(m), penetrative sexual assault against a child below twelve years is aggravated and punishable under Section 6.

Once the foundational facts for an offence under the Act are established, Section 29 provides a statutory presumption against the accused, subject to rebuttal.

A child witness’s evidence may sustain a conviction if the child is competent to testify and the evidence is reliable; the court must assess the possibility of tutoring and consistency on material particulars (Dattu Ramrao Sakhare v. State of Maharashtra; Rai Sandeep @ Deepu v. State (NCT of Delhi)).

Minor discrepancies do not require rejection of otherwise reliable testimony (Vijay @ Chinee v. State of Madhya Pradesh).

A sexual-offence conviction may rest on trustworthy victim testimony without independent corroboration, and delay in reporting is not by itself a ground to reject the prosecution case where satisfactorily explained (State of Punjab v. Gurmit Singh; Tulshidas Kanolkar v. State of Goa).

The Court found the child competent to testify and considered her identification of the appellant and description of the act consistent on material particulars.

It held that her statement in cross-examination that her mother slept with Suresh did not support the alleged tutoring theory, and that the claimed motive to fabricate the accusation was otherwise unsubstantiated.

The medical examination occurred months after the alleged incident; the absence of injury did not exclude the act, and the evidence did not establish that the appellant’s paralysis made him incapable of committing it.

The Court accepted the mother’s explanation for the delay, having regard to the child’s age, the accused’s relationship to her, and the circumstances of disclosure.

It concluded that the child’s account, supported by the mother’s evidence about the disclosure, established digital penetration and the victim’s age below twelve, thereby establishing the offence’s foundational facts and attracting Section 29.

It dismissed the appeal, upheld the conviction and the sentence of twenty years’ rigorous imprisonment and a ₹10,000 fine, with one year’s simple imprisonment in default, and disposed of any pending applications.