Skin-to-skin contact not a must in Pocso offences: SC

Skin-to-skin contact not a must in Pocso offences: SC

AmitAnand.Choudhary@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:19.11.2021

Holding that physical contact with a child with sexual intent could not be trivialised by excluding it from the ambit of sexual assault, the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that skin-toskin touch is not essential and even indirect touch amounts to an offence under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. A bench of Justices U U Lalit, S Ravindra Bhat and Bela M Trivedi quashed two judgments of the Bombay HC which held that “skin to skin” contact was essential for proving offences under Pocso Act, and said such a narrow interpretation would defeat the purpose of the Act.

HC verdicts passed in Jan led to considerable outrage

The high court ruling had caused widespread consternation as it could have allowed offenders to exploit the “skin-to-skin” contact reference to escape the ambit of the law. “The act of touching any sexual part of the body of a child with sexual intent or any other act involving physical contact with sexual intent, could not be trivialised or held insignificant or peripheral so as to exclude such act from the purview of “sexual assault” under Section 7,” it said.

It noted use of gloves, cloth, or contact through clothes, or even use of condoms, could have been excluded in the light of the HC orders despite sexual intent. The HC verdicts passed in January led to considerable outrage and it was attorney general K K Venugopal who challenged the verdict before the Supreme Court saying the orders were outrageous and will have wider ramifications on 43,000 Pocso cases registered every year in the country.

Later on, the National Commission for Women and Maharashtra goverenment also filed an appeal against the HC verdicts. Allowing their pleas, the bench said that any narrow and pedantic interpretation of the provision which would defeat the object of the provision, cannot be accepted.

“Restricting the interpretation of the words “touch” or physical contact” to “skin to skin contact” would not only be a narrow and pedantic interpretation of the provision contained in Section 7 of the Pocso Act, but it would lead to an absurd interpretation of the said provision. “Skin to skin contact” for constituting an offence of “sexual assault” could not have been intended or contemplated by the legislature,” Justice Trivedi, who penned the judgment for herself and Justice Lalit, said.

NCW welcomes SC order in skin-to-skin case

New Delhi:

The National Commission for Women has welcomed the Supreme Court’s order setting aside the Bombay High Court’s Nagpur bench’s judgment that held that skin-to-skin contact was necessary for the offence of sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act. On February 4, NCW had filed an SLP before the Supreme Court challenging the judgment stating that it would set a dangerous precedent for women safety.

The commission while filing the SLP had raised concern that the order had far reaching ramifications for women and children, exposing them to a desensitised society. “The commission welcomes the SC verdict today and believes that the apex court’s decision in the matter will uphold the legal and constitutional safeguard for women and children,” NCW said in the statement. TNN