POCSO court acquits seven persons after woman denies she was 17 at time of marriage

Judge Harshal Kisan Bhalerao, special judge under the POCSO Act and additional sessions judge, Pune, on September 19, 2026, concluded that the evidence did not establish that the accused had solemnised the woman’s marriage while she was a minor.

PUNE:

POCSO court acquits seven persons after woman denies she was 17 at time of marriage

A special POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act) court has acquitted seven persons accused of child marriage, sexual assault and dowry harassment after the woman at the centre of the case testified that she was already 18 years’ old when she married in 2020, contradicting her previous police complaint that she was only 17.

Judge Harshal Kisan Bhalerao, special judge under the POCSO Act and additional sessions judge, Pune, on September 19, 2026, concluded that the evidence did not establish that the accused had solemnised the woman’s marriage while she was a minor, that her husband had sexually assaulted or harassed her while she was a minor, or that her in-laws had physically or mentally harassed her for dowry. The court noted that although the woman’s birth certificate recorded her date of birth as August 20, 2003, she did not testify about her date of birth and instead told the court that she had completed 18 years at the time of her marriage. “Therefore, without the oral evidence of the victim about her date of birth, the birth certificate of the victim cannot be solely relied upon to hold that the victim was a minor and a child at the time of the incident,” Judge Bhalerao observed.

All seven accused — Ashish Sham Gaikwad, 26; his parents Sham Kisan Gaikwad, 52, and Sushma Kisan Gaikwad, 48; his brother Akshay Sham Gaikwad, 29; sister-in-law Kavita Akshay Gaikwad, 30; and Arjun Rambhau Jadhav, 44 and Sushma Arjun Jadhav, 40 — were acquitted of the charges under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), POCSO Act and Prohibition of Child Marriage Act. The court also directed each accused to furnish a ₹50,000 surety, valid for six months or until an appeal is filed, whichever is earlier.

The case had been registered at the Khadki police station on June 11, 2022 under relevant sections of the IPC, POCSO Act, and Prohibition of Child Marriage Act. According to the prosecution, the woman had approached the Khadki police alleging that she was 17 years’ old when she married Ashish Gaikwad on December 19, 2020. As per the complaint: the woman’s husband and his family knew that she was underage but persuaded her parents to agree to the marriage; and the marriage was solemnised after Ashish Gaikwad assured the woman’s parents that they would take responsibility for her and not disclose her age. Among others, the woman alleged that her husband repeatedly physically and sexually abused her; her father-in-law behaved inappropriately with her; other members of the family assaulted and abused her; her in-laws demanded money from her parents and she was assaulted over demands for money; she became pregnant around March 2021 and her husband and in-laws did not want the child; her brother-in-law at the instance of her mother-in-law bought and gave her tablets to terminate her pregnancy; and she attempted suicide following continued harassment and had to be taken to the hospital. Subsequently, she returned to her parental home and then approached the police. During the trial however, she denied she had been only 17 at the time of her marriage.