20-11-2021, 12:34 PM
1 day ago
India's Supreme Court has struck down a controversial high court order that cleared a man of sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl because "there was no skin-to-skin contact" with the victim.
The order, passed by a female judge of the high court in Mumbai in January, had resulted in massive outrage.
......
In its ruling on Thursday, the Supreme Court bench said the courts must look at the sexual intent and not whether there was skin-to-skin contact.
......
In December 2016, a 39-year-old man was accused of groping a 12-year-old girl. The child's mother had alleged that he had lured her daughter to his home where he pressed her breast and tried to remove her pyjama bottom.
A trial court had convicted him for sexually assaulting a child under the stringent Pocso (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act and handed him a three-year jail sentence.
But on 12 January, Bombay High Court judge Pushpa Ganediwala ruled that pressing the girl's breast without removing her top was not sexual assault since there was no skin-to-skin contact and it would only invite the lesser charge of molestation.
......
According to a government study in 2007, two out of every three children in India were physically abused and that 53% of the nearly 12,300 surveyed children reported one or more forms of sexual abuse.
Last year, the National Crime Records Bureau registered 43,000 offences
......
that's an average of one case every 12 minutes.
Full report at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-58825373
India's Supreme Court has struck down a controversial high court order that cleared a man of sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl because "there was no skin-to-skin contact" with the victim.
The order, passed by a female judge of the high court in Mumbai in January, had resulted in massive outrage.
......
In its ruling on Thursday, the Supreme Court bench said the courts must look at the sexual intent and not whether there was skin-to-skin contact.
......
In December 2016, a 39-year-old man was accused of groping a 12-year-old girl. The child's mother had alleged that he had lured her daughter to his home where he pressed her breast and tried to remove her pyjama bottom.
A trial court had convicted him for sexually assaulting a child under the stringent Pocso (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act and handed him a three-year jail sentence.
But on 12 January, Bombay High Court judge Pushpa Ganediwala ruled that pressing the girl's breast without removing her top was not sexual assault since there was no skin-to-skin contact and it would only invite the lesser charge of molestation.
......
According to a government study in 2007, two out of every three children in India were physically abused and that 53% of the nearly 12,300 surveyed children reported one or more forms of sexual abuse.
Last year, the National Crime Records Bureau registered 43,000 offences
......
that's an average of one case every 12 minutes.
Full report at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-58825373