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Synopsis

Special Judge Nazera S Shaikh of a Special POCSO Court in Mumbai has sent a father to imprisonment for life for committing aggravated penetrative sexual assault on his 8-year-old daughter while observing that it was a clear case of a protector turning predator. 

"The victim is a young girl of barely 8 years and the accused is her father, it is a clear case of 'Protector turning predator'. Hence, the degree of the act committed by accused is graver and rare, therefore it attracts deterrent punishment of imprisonment for life provided in section 6 of the POCSO Act," the court observed.

The special court also observed that the father has the role of protector, provider and disciplinarian and that the father-daughter relationship plays a pivotal role in a girl's journey to adulthood.

"In almost every culture, father primarily has role of a protector, provider, disciplinarian. The father-daughter relationship plays a vital role in a girl's journey to adulthood. A father is the first man in a girl's life that she will intimately know. Her father sets the standard for all other men in her life. The act of the accused is betrayal of the faith in humanity" the court noted.

The father was booked under Section 6 of the Protection of Children From Sexual Offences Act 2013 and Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code 1860. 

The FIR was registered against the father after the mother of the child found her husband half naked and sexually abusing the 8-year-old. The mother pushed the accused away and rescued the victim. The neighbours gathered and started to thrash the accused after which one of the neighbours called the police and took the accused to the police station. 

Pertinently, during the course of the hearing, the victim and the mother had turned hostile and the victim had denied all the allegations against the father. However the court recorded that,

"It may be due to familial pressure, societal stigma trauma of the abuse or fear of accused that, victim and informant balk from testifying against accused. However, corroboration of the complaint in the form of medical evidence proves penetrative sexual assault on the victim. At the time of medical examination of the victim and accused the forensic samples were collected and sent for forensic analysis along with muddemal articles i.e. the clothes of the victim, accused, the button and carpet pieces collected from the spot," the court recorded

The court relied on medical evidence and forensic evidence which established the case of the prosecution without a pale of doubt. 

The special court also while imposing a fine of Rs. 10000 noted in its judgement that a message should be conveyed that if anyone commits an offence under the POCSO Act they shall be punished.

"It is settled principal that, awarding a suitable punishment commensurate with the act of sexual assault, a message must be conveyed to the society at large that, if anybody commits an offence under the POCSO Act of sexual assault, they shall be punished suitably and no leniency shall be shown to them," the court noted.

Case title: State of Maharastra vs Father (The details of accused are kept in separate envelope and it shall be the part of judgment to protect the identity of victim)