Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act [POCSO]

“Deterrence is a measure of social necessity and also as a means of deterring other potential offenders.”

The Act seeks to protect children from offenses such as sexual assault, sexual harassment, and pornography. This Act was amended recently in 2019 where the death penalty was introduced for aggravated penetrative sexual assault in Section 6 of the Principal Act and the minimum punishment was modified to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment.

The Apex Court considered the heinous nature of the rape and murder of a 2 years old girl-child, the Court awarded the death penalty to the accused giving a retrospective effect to the said amendment. It was stated that criminals cannot be reformed despite best efforts and would be a threat to the security and safety of society whenever released. It would adhere to the legislative policy in the wake of increasing cases of sexual abuse and exploitation of children of tender age.  POCSO Act

Getting a bail under the POCSO Act is indeed difficult, however, if one could prove that he is being falsely charged for the offence and can provide evidence in support then the accused can be acquitted. There have been many instances such as: A court in Delhi acquitted an accused man for sexually assaulting minors, and the Court also noted that children were heavily tutored by their parents and that there is ample evidence to show that he was falsely framed due to “caste hatred”.

The court after going through the material on record stated that there is an ample evidence to prove that the accused person was falsely framed due to the prejudicial disposition of the parents regarding the accused person, who belongs to the Dalit community.

“It is our experience in manning criminal justice delivery system that people level false accusations for myriad reasons, one of which is caste hatred as exemplified in appreciation of evidence in this case” stated by the Court.

False Complaint under POCSO

In 2016, a complaint was filed that has turned out to be false and the victim contended that she did not know the accused and no such incident had taken place. She filed a complaint against two men stating an allegation that the minor had been kidnapped by the duo, made to consume alcohol and raped by them.

A case study of false rape case

Two men were booked on charges of gang rape and kidnapping under relevant provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. They were behind bars for nearly five years. But, last week, the special court acquitted them. It also asked the minor to return any compensation she got from the government. The court, in its order, stated that it was not clear whether the survivor received any ex-gratia monetary aid from the state.

Are innocent men be targeting for ill-motives?

Even a cursory reading of the new law on rape brings to light the exceptionally inclusive approach to provide justice in rape cases. However, it also raises the question that if such a law, that imposes the aforesaid heavy punishment, is misused then what are going to be the consequences for the falsely accused person.

Without trivialising the issue of rape and the fact that it is rampant and a whole lot of cases do not even get registered with the police, one cannot ignore the fact that if a woman falsely accuses a man, the victimization of that particular person is going to humungous. The importance and gravity that will be attributed to the statement of the accused is going to be dramatically lesser than the importance and truth value that will be attributed to the supposed “victim”. Evidence and conduct does help to an extent, but what will a person do when the sexual act was done with consent and then later on the presentation of that fact is distorted and presented as a non-consensual act.