Presumptions under Pocso Act can only be rebutted at trial: Bombay HC

Once prima facie case is established, the presumptions under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, 2012, can only be rebutted by leading evidence during the trial, said the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court (HC), while dismissing the petition filed by a Nagpur resident booked for sexually assaulting her six-year-old nephew

Once prima facie case is established, the presumptions under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, 2012, can only be rebutted by leading evidence during the trial, said the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court (HC), while dismissing the petition filed by a Nagpur resident booked for sexually assaulting her six-year-old nephew.

The accused woman was booked by Shanti Nagar police station in October 2017, under relevant sections of the Pocso Act, for allegedly inappropriately touching the child and making him touch her. (HT Photo)

The woman was booked by Shanti Nagar police station in October 2017, under relevant sections of the Pocso Act, for allegedly inappropriately touching the child and making him touch her.

She had moved the HC, claiming that she had been booked in a false case, and the offence was registered based on a complaint lodged by the disgruntled father of the child. She claimed that he had tutored the child to level false allegations against her.

The division bench of justice Sunil Shukre and justice Avinash Gharote, however, dismissed her petition after noticing that the child was independently examined by the child welfare committee, a judicial magistrate and the investigation officer, and the minor was consistent in his allegations regarding the abuse at the hands of his maternal aunt.

“The allegations of sexual abuse being clear and specific, we do not feel that this is a case which merits interference. This is clearly a matter which will have to undergo the tribulations of a trial,” said the bench.

The bench added that it cannot be doubted that offences of such a nature, as alleged against the woman, might not be disclosed for multiple reasons. “However, once such allegation has been made, the same has to be tested on the anvil of evidence to be led at the trial, unless the allegation is absurd to its core,” the court said.

“In our considered opinion, the nature of allegations of sexual abuse, as has been made in the present matter, and the fact that those have been independently verified by three different agencies, leaves no room to exercise of any discretion in favour of the petitioner,” the bench added.