JUDGES POSTED UNDER SPECIAL COURTS OF POCSO MUST BE GIVEN SPECIAL TRAINING

The Madras HC recently said that Judges posted under the special courts of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, must be given special training on how to 
deal with these kinds of cases.

The Madras HC made these observations after Justice P Velmurgan noted that the special court judge made errors in the application of the POCSO Act in a sexual assault case of a 10-year-old child.

When a child below 12 is subjected to sexual assault, it is viewed to be more an aggravated sexual assault as per section 9 and punishable u/s 10 of the Act. Whereas, when a child is 12 or above suffers sexual assault (sec 7) is punishable u/s 8 of the Act. In the present case, the trial court invoked sections 7 and 8 of the Act rather than sections 9 and 10 for the sexual assault case of a 10-year-old victim.

The Court was dealing with an appeal by the man accused of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old child. In January 2014, the appellant took the 10-yr-old to his house and harassed her. The next day, the appellant tried to call the child home with the intention to assault her. However, the child refused to come to his house, following which the Appellant threatened the 10-year-old. On being questioned, the 10-yr-old victim narrated the incident and, after that, lodged a complaint on 29th January 2014. In 2021, the trial court convicted the appellant u/s 7 and 8 of the POCSO Act and Section 506 (i) of the Indian Penal Code. The appellant reached before the HC against the Trial Court's order. The Hon'ble HC upheld the appellant's conviction. However, the HC reversed the sentence to run consecutively instead of concurrently. 
 

Author: Papiha Ghoshal