Oral sex with minor is a “lesser offense” - Allahabad high court
Law
In 2018, Jhansi district resident, Dev Singh had alleged that Kushwaha took his 10-year-old son to a temple in UP’s Hardaul town, forced the minor to have “oral sex” and gave him INR 20. The boy was also threatened and forced to not tell anybody about the incident.
Case registered
Based on the FIR filed 4 days after the incident, a case was registered under Section 377 (carnal intercourse against the order of nature) and Section 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in addition to Section 3 and 4 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, commonly known as POCSO Act.
Appeal filed
The convict appealed against the 10-year jail term sentenced by an additional sessions judge/ special Judge, POCSO Act, Jhansi. The Allahabad High Court ruling on his appeal, sentenced the convict to 7 years in jail instead of 10 years.
However, the Allahabad high Court in held that the convict could not be charged under Section 6 which provides punishment for aggravated penetrative sexual assault. “It comes into the category of penetrative sexual assault which is punishable under Section 4 of POCSO Act,” the court claimed.
What is Section 4?
Section 4 of the Act has provisions for punishment for penetrative sexual assault.
“Penetrative sexual assault being [a] lesser offense from aggravated penetrative sexual assault is legally permissible to convict the appellant therein,” the court said.
India and a history of child sex abuse
India is home to a large number of sexually abused children. In 2020, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) registered 43,000 offenses under the stringent POCSO Act. This translates to an average of 1 case every 12 minutes. As many as 24 lakh online child sexual abuse cases, with 80% of them relating to girls under 14, have been reported in India from 2017 to 2020.
Activists, however, estimate the real numbers to be much higher, given the stigma and general reluctance to talk about the topic.
In April 2020, human rights experts from the United Nations had warned that:
“Travel restrictions and the increase in online users will likely lead to a significant spike in sexual grooming online by pedophiles and predators, live streaming of child sexual abuse and the production and distribution of child sexual abuse material.”
Also last year, Cyber Tipline of the US-based National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, received 21.7 million reports of images, videos and other files containing suspected child sexual abuse material and other incident-related content from around the world.
This was a 28% rise in reports from 2019. And India was high up on the list.
Like what you read? Share this article with your friends and follow us on:
Instagram | Medium | LinkedIn