CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has reversed a special court’s order acquitting a man accused in a case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, holding that marriage with the victim and leading a happy life cannot be a ground for acquittal.
Justice P Velmurugan, while reversing the acquittal order passed by the special court for Pocso Act cases in the Nilgiris, sentenced the man to 10 years of simple imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 1,000.
He said, “The offence under the Pocso Act is not against individual and it is against the society. Hence, the subsequent marriage between the accused and the victim will not take away the offence committed by the accused when the victim girl was a child….”
Further, the judge remarked that if the defence of subsequent marriage or elopement is accepted as a ground for acquittal, then the “purpose of enactment” of the Pocso Act “would get defeated”; and also will lead to “disastrous consequences”.
The man was charged with sections 343, and 363 of IPC for abduction and wrongful confinement and section 5 (1) r/w 6 of Pocso Act for penetrative sexual assault of the 17-year-old victim girl. On November 30, 2022, the special court acquitted him in the Pocso Act case but punished him with one year imprisonment for the offences under the IPC.
He filed a petition in the high court to quash the order of punishment, while the prosecution filed an appeal against the acquittal.
The man submitted that he and the girl were in love and when her parents arranged her marriage with another person, in 2020, they left the neighbourhood and stayed at a relative’s house in Mysore.
Based on a complaint lodged by her father, the police registered a case and secured the girl. Subsequently, they slapped the charges under IPC and Pocso against him and arrested him.
During the pendency of trial, they both got married and made submissions regarding this in the trial court.