The Supreme Court on Thursday said the objective of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act could not be ignored merely because child marriages continue, or worse still, abusers marry their minor victims to escape conviction.
“So, POCSO Act should be ignored by the courts as most of the people at the grassroot level are not filing complaints and there is marriage between the accused and the minor survivors? What is the assurance that he will not abandon her after avoiding conviction?” Justice A.S. Oka asked in court.
The court was dealing with the case of kidnap and rape of a 14-year-old girl in West Bengal. Her mother had registered an FIR. However, she is currently living with her child and the accused, whom the trial court had convicted under the POCSO Act.
Deciding his appeal against conviction, the Calcutta High Court, in October last year, had acquitted the 20-year-old man, concluding that both had been romantically linked. The High Court had then passed a series of observations in its order “advising” adolescent girls to “control their sexual urges”.
The Supreme Court had taken suo motu cognisance of the case, noting judges were not there to preach.
“She was 14 years old at the time of the incident. Then she did not get an opportunity to make an informed choice about her life… Now she is forced to go and live with him…” Justice Oka remarked on Thursday.
The court wondered whether she would be in a position to speak her mind about what she really wanted.
“Would it be a case of Stockholm syndrome?” Justice Bhuyan asked.
Justice Oka said the State was ultimately responsible for the well-being of the rape survivor and her child, if their abuser-turned-husband was sent to jail.
Institutional protection
The court directed the West Bengal government to provide her institutional protection and counselling. The Bench asked the State to consider taking expert guidance from Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Justice Oka said a similar step was taken in the case of a young boy who was slapped by his classmates and showered with communal abuses by his schoolteacher in Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh.
During the hearing, senior advocates Madhavi Divan and Liz Mathew, amici curiae in the case, said the High Court order reeked of “patriarchal monarchy”.
They emphasised it was time for law books and judges to shed terms such as ‘chastity’, ‘modesty’, ‘purity’, etc, when talking of women citizens who had approached courts for justice.
“The High Court order turns a woman’s right to bodily autonomy on its head. It says her self-worth depends on her ‘purity’ and ‘chastity’... We cannot expect a judge to be divorced from his or her social milieu, but we certainly require some gender-sensitive judgment writing here,” Ms. Divan submitted.
