Pocso draconian law, courts must be cautious, says Madras HC – Times of India

CHENNAI: Citing the ‘draconian nature’ Prevention of Children From Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, Madras high court has said courts should be cautious while dealing with such cases. It then gave a school teacher clean chit and acquitted him from a sexual assault case in which he had been convicted and sentenced to five-year jail term.
“When the offence against the children must be viewed seriously, the court should also be cautious of the fact that the offender has got a huge responsibility for proving his innocence because of the draconian nature of the Special Act (POCSO), the punishment is very grave,” Justice R N Manjula said.
Noting that while appreciating the evidence of the child witnesses the court should be more cautious to rule out the possibility of tutoring the child, the judge said, “There are patent contradictions even between the evidence of the complainant (father) and his daughter (victim).”
Also, observing that the evidence given by the victim children lack certain information like the place and time of occurrence, the judge said, “hence due consideration should be given to the improbabilities or other material weaknesses found in the evidence of the prosecution.”
The court then set aside the order dated October 30, 2018 passed by Dharmapuri Mahila Court, three years after a government school teacher was convicted and sentenced to 5 years of rigorous imprisonment for sexually assaulting his girl students.