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Synopsis

The Madras High Court recently reversed the findings of a trial court and sentenced a man to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of 10 years for sexually molesting an 8-year-old girl child.

“To call an aggravated penetrative sexual assault on an eight-year-old girl as ‘animalistic’ will be an injustice to animals because even they do not sexually assault young/baby animals,” the court said.

The single judge bench of Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy made the observation while reversing the order of acquittal passed by the sessions court in Tiruppur in 2014 in a case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act of 2012.

Court noted that the Trial Court had acquitted the man based on irrelevant considerations and materials while ignoring the relevant materials such as the deposition of the child and the corroborative evidence.

“On a cumulative reading of the entire evidence on record and the judgment of the Trial Court, even by exercising great restraint, it is to be stated that the judgment of the Trial Court is an affront on judicial conscience. Thus, I have no hesitation whatsoever in upturning the finding of the acquittal as to one of guilt,” said the court.

In the present case, the accused had entered the victim girl’s home when she was alone and brutally raped her. He had even attempted to murder her by strangulating her. Due to the strangulation, there was a sub-conjunctival hemorrhage in her eyes as the blood vessel in her eye had ruptured. Since the blood circulation to her brain had stopped during the strangulation, she also got Post Anoxic Myoclonus. Apart from that, the victim had also suffered numerous mental injuries. The court noted that the assault was barbaric and it left the child with serious injuries.

Court also directed the state government to pay compensation to her since the girl had undergone untold misery, physically and psychologically, due to the sexual assault perpetrated by the convict, who was her neighbour, in 2013. Taking note that the girl was now in Class XII, the judge directed the government to deposit the compensation in the bank account of her mother, with a rider that the money should be used only for the girl’s education, rehabilitation and well-being.

While sentencing the accused to rigorous imprisonment, the court also directed the Tamil Nadu government to pay a compensation of 10.5 lakh rupees to the victim child without insisting on further formality due to the sensitivity involved.

Case Title: State vs. Dadayutham