Madras HC Sets Aside POCSO Convictions, Citing Unrecovered Alleged Video, Victim’s Account And No Proof Of Abetment

The prosecution alleged that the First Appellant sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl, threatened her with a video of their alleged intimacy, and that the Second Appellant abetted the offence.

The victim’s date of birth was recorded as 7 June 2002.

The trial court convicted the First Appellant under Section 6 of the POCSO Act and the Second Appellant under Sections 6 and 17, imposing separate ten-year sentences and fines.

The appellants challenged their convictions and sentences under Section 374 CrPC.

The Court considered Section 6 of the POCSO Act, concerning aggravated penetrative sexual assault, and Section 17, concerning punishment for abetment of an offence under the Act.

It applied the criminal-law principle that suspicion, however grave, cannot substitute for proof.

It treated medical evidence as corroborative, not sufficient by itself to establish the accused’s responsibility for the alleged assault, and regarded the evidence of witnesses recounting what they had been told as hearsay.

No precedent was cited in the judgment.

The Court found that the victim’s friend, at whose house the alleged incidents occurred, did not support the prosecution, and that the victim did not testify that the First Appellant had subjected her to penetrative sexual assault.

The alleged video was not produced, and the investigating officer admitted that the First Appellant’s mobile phone had not been recovered; the Court considered these omissions fatal to the prosecution’s claim that he had recorded the acts and used the video to compel the victim.

The medical evidence—an unruptured hymen and difficulty admitting one finger—did not establish that the First Appellant caused the hymenal rupture or committed the alleged assault; the medical witness also accepted that rupture could result from other causes.

The remaining family witnesses’ evidence was hearsay, and the Court found no incriminating evidence against the Second Appellant.

It also held that the trial court’s separate convictions and sentences of the Second Appellant under Sections 6 and 17 were contrary to criminal jurisprudence, given the charge framed under Section 6 read with Section 17.

It allowed the appeal, set aside the convictions and sentences in Special S.C. No. 4 of 2016, discharged the appellants’ bail bonds, and ordered any fine paid to be refunded.