The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court recently reduced the life sentence of a man convicted under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POSCO) Act to 10 years in prison, ruling that the original punishment was “harsh and excessive.” Justices Nitin B. Suryavanshi and Pravin S. Patil upheld the conviction but modified the sentence, stating that 10 years of rigorous imprisonment would serve justice in the case. The accused, a laborer from Akola, was convicted in 2013 for raping a one-and-a-half-year-old girl. According to the prosecution, the man forcibly entered the victim’s home in the absence of the male head of the household and sexually assaulted the infant. When the child’s mother resisted, she left to seek help from neighbors. Upon returning, she found him assaulting her daughter. The accused then allegedly tried to rape the woman before fleeing when she screamed for help.
The Bombay High Court dismissed the defense’s argument that there was no evidence of penetrative assault and that the medical officer’s testimony was only corroborative, not substantive. The bench emphasized that medical findings, eyewitness accounts, and circumstantial evidence conclusively proved the offense under the Pocso Act. While upholding the conviction, the court noted that the mother’s testimony, supported by medical evidence, clearly established the crime. However, the judges deemed the life sentence excessive, reducing it to 10 years.
Recentky the Allahabad High Court had delivered a controversial ruling that grabbing breasts or snapping a pyjama string does not constitute rape or attempt to rape, but only aggravated sexual assault, a lesser charge. The judgment by the Allahabad High Court has ignited outrage, with many questioning the judicial insensitivity behind such an interpretation and calling for Supreme Court intervention. The case involves an attack on an 11-year-old girl in Kasganj, Uttar Pradesh, in 2021. The victim was allegedly assaulted by two men, Pawan and Akash, who grabbed her breasts, tore her pyjama string, and attempted to drag her under a culvert. The girl, walking with her mother, screamed for help, which forced the accused to flee.
