KOCHI: Kerala High Court has held that placing a vibrating device on vaginal opening amounts to penetrative sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO Act) and rape under IPC.
While dismissing an appeal filed by first accused Joshy K J, of Thrissur, who was convicted of raping and sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl, the court said that “placing a vibrating machine on the orifice of the vagina, labia majora, or vulva, by itself would be sufficient to find insertion on the vagina and the same is sufficient to hold that a person committed penetrative sexual assault as defined under Section 3(b) punishable under Section 4 of the POCSO Act. Similar is the position with regard to the offence of rape defined under Section 375(b) of the IPC.”
The prosecution alleged that Joshy, an associate of fake antiques collector Monson Mavunkal, sexually assaulted the survivor, on July 20, 2019, in the treatment room on the second floor of the house belonging to Monson.
The crime branch stated that Joshy laid the victim forcefully on the treatment bed and thereafter inserted an oval shaped penis like orange instrument on a vibrating machine and forcefully placed the vibrating machine on her vagina in the vibrating condition.
The further allegation is that the first accused also threatened the victim that she should not divulge the same to anybody.
The trial court had awarded 10 years rigorous imprisonment to the accused.
The victim deposed before the trial court that while she was staying at her house after having failed for some subjects in Plus-II course, Monson brought her to his house offering to teach her cosmetology and accordingly she was appointed as a staffer therein. The victim disclosed about the incident after Monson Mavunkal was arrested in a cheating case.
The High Court held that the Special Judge had imposed only the statutory minimum sentence, and no further reduction in the sentence is legally permissible.
Hence, the High Court dismissed Joshy’s appeal.
