‘Exorcist’ and schoolgirl’s father escape POCSO Act conviction due to doubts over her age

‘Exorcist’ and schoolgirl’s father escape POCSO Act conviction due to doubts over her age

Trigger warning: the following article has references to child sexual abuse, sexual assault, and rape. Reader discretion advised.

An ‘exorcist’ and the father of a schoolgirl have escaped punishment under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act of 2012 because of the prosecution’s failure to prove she was only 16 years old when the duo subjected her to sexual assault and aggravated penetrative sexual assault, respectively.

A Division Bench of Justices A.D. Jagadish Chandira and K. Rajasekar held that a certificate issued by the school headmistress was insufficient to prove the age of the victim. A radiologist who conducted the ossification test was not examined, and the test report was not marked as evidence before the trial court, they said.

The judges, therefore, set aside the conviction of the girl’s father Gunasekaran and the ‘exorcist’ Sivakumar for the offences under Sections 7 (sexual assault) and 5 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault) of the POCSO Act, which the trial court had invoked to impose five years of rigorous imprisonment and life sentence, respectively.

Nevertheless, since Additional Public Prosecutor A. Thiruvadi Kumar had succeeded in proving the other facts of the case before the High Court, the Division Bench convicted the girl’s father under Section 354 (outraging a woman’s modesty) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sentenced him to three years of simple imprisonment.

The Bench also found the ‘exorcist’ guilty under Section 376(1) (rape) of the IPC and sentenced him to rigorous imprisonment for 10 years. It also reduced the fine amount of ₹5 lakh imposed on him by the trial court under the POCSO Act to ₹25,000 for the IPC offence, with a default sentence of one year of simple imprisonment.

The judges further ordered that the compensation of ₹7 lakh ordered to be paid to the victim by the trial court by invoking the provisions of the POCSO Act, should instead be paid from the Tamil Nadu Victim Compensation Scheme for Women Victims/Survivors of Sexual Assault/Other Crimes 2018.