CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has quashed a FIR filed by a teenaged girl alleging she was sexually abused by her father and brother. The court said that the Class IX girl, with a below normal IQ, had merely repeated a complaint written by a child welfare volunteer and was unable to understand the consequences of her complaint.
The case was filed by the Puducherry Police last year and the girl’s father and brother were remanded in judicial custody on charges of child sexual abuse. Subsequently, the accused had moved the Madras High Court seeking to quash the FIR.
In his order last week, Justice R Mahadevan said a plain reading of the FIR would show that the entire proceedings were maliciously instituted with the ulterior motive to wreak vengeance against the father and brother.
The findings rendered by the Schizophrenia Research Foundation in Chennai (for psychological evaluation and treatment), showed that the girl does not have the capacity to think about the outcome of her behaviour of lodging the complaint and that she had verbatim copied a complaint written a child welfare volunteer.
The court also observed that the girl had wanted to stay in a hostel and, hence, merely copied the complaint against her father and brother without knowing the consequences. “In view of these circumstances, the impugned FIR is quashed,” the judge said.
In her complaint, the girl had alleged that her father sexually abused her before she attained puberty and her brother had taken photographs while she was bathing. And the police registered a case for offences under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.
The accused were arrested and lodged in prison on April 16, 2016. When his bail petition came up before the High Court, which doubted the veracity of the complaint as the same was without any mistake and overwriting, directed the police to produce her before the court on the next date.
When the court asked her to read a few lines in the complaint, she was unable to do so. The court referred her for certain tests and it was found that she wanted to stay in a hostel and that she copied the complaint written by a child welfare volunteer, whom she met in an awareness programme conducted by the school earlier.
It was also found that she is intellectually below average and does not have the capacity to think about the consequences of her behaviour. The father had to change her school thrice because of her poor academic record.