Most important ingredient of sexual assault is intent: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Thursday quashed the controversial skintoskin judgement of the Bombay High Court in a case under the POCSO Act saying the most important ingredient constituting sexual assault is sexual intent and not skintoskin contact with the child The high court had held that no offence of sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences POCSO Act is made out if there is no direct skintoskin contact between an accused and victim The top court which was hearing separate appeals of Attorney General AG and the National Commission for women NCW had stayed the HC order acquitting the assaulter on January 27Justice Pushpa GanediwalaA bench headed by Justice U U Lalit set aside the HC judgment and said the act of touching the sexual part of the body or any other act involving physical contact if done with sexual intent would amount to sexual assault within the meaning of section 7 of the POCSO Act Purpose of the law canrsquot be to allow the offender to sneak out of the meshes of the law it said ldquoWe have held that when the legislature has expressed clear intention the courts cannot manufacture ambiguity in the provision It is right that courts canrsquot be overzealous in searching ambiguityrdquo the bench also comprising Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Bela M Trivedi saidJustice Bhat delivered a separate concurring judgment ldquoThe most important ingredient for constituting the offence of sexual assault is sexual intent and not skintoskin contact with the childrdquo Attorney General K K Venugopal had earlier told the SC that the controversial HC verdict would set a ldquodangerous and outrageous precedentrdquo and needed to be reversedAn SC bench headed by Justice U U LalitThe SC which was hearing separate appeals of the AG and the NCW had on January 27 stayed the HC order acquitting a man under the POCSO Act saying groping a minorrsquos breast without skintoskin contact canrsquot be termed as sexual assault Justice Pushpa Ganediwala of the Bombay High Court Nagpur Benchhad modified the order of a sessions court which had sentenced a 39yearold man to three years of jail for sexually assaulting a 12yearold girlWhat the HC verdict saidThe verdict had said that groping a minorrsquos breast without skintoskin contact cannot be termed as sexual assault as defined under the POCSO Act In December 2016 accused Satish had taken the girl to his house in Nagpur on the pretext of giving her something to eat and there he groped her breast and tried to remove her clothes the HC had recorded in the verdict However since he groped her without removing her clothes the offence canrsquot be termed as sexual assault and instead constitutes the offence of outraging a womanrsquos modesty under IPC Section 354 it had held The sessions court had sentenced the man to three years of imprisonment for the offences under the POCSO Act as also under IPC section 354 The sentences were to run concurrently The HC however acquitted him under the POCSO Act while upholding his conviction under IPC Section 354Sex assault definition in POCSO ActThe POCSO Act defines sexual assault as when someone ldquowith sexual intent touches the vagina penis anus or breast of the child or makes the child touch the vagina penis anus or breast of such person or any other person or does any other act with sexual intent which involves physical contact without penetration is said to commit sexual assaultrdquo The court had held that this ldquophysical contactrdquo mentioned in the definition of sexual assault must be skintoskin or direct physical contact12 yrsAge of the child at the time of the assault back in the year 2016Jan 19Day the Bombay High Court passed the order acquitting the convictThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever