Mumbai: A special Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court in Mumbai disposed of a sexual assault case of a five-year-old girl after she failed to recall the details of the incident.
The alleged abuse took place in 2016-17. Though the girl was able to recollect minute details about her school such as classroom and play area, she was unable to conclusively recall any detail regarding the alleged assault. This led the POCSO court to acquit a French national, the trustee of the plush school in the western suburbs, and a teacher.
In the judgment dated 2 March, judge A.D. Deo said, “Considering the testimony of PW-11 (the victim), it is difficult to believe that victim number 1 who could amazingly recollect so many minute details of her days in school could have a faded memory only in respect of the incident as per prosecution.”
He added that the picture emerging from the victim’s testimony shows that “she was never ravished by anyone in school”.
The case
The case first came to light in May 2017 when the mother of the girl had filed a complaint at MIDC Police Station in Andheri based on which police filed an FIR. According to the complaint, the French national, who the victim is said to have described as a “boy teacher” to her mother, sexually assaulted the five-year-old girl and a boy aged below four years more than once in school in 2016-17.
The school teacher, who was named in the FIR, is alleged to have aided the crime by taking the two children to a play loft in the school and telling them to keep this a secret. The two accused were arrested in November 2017.
“In this case, circumstances clearly point out that the evidence of victim is grossly inadequate to draw inference with regard to the penetrative sexual assault or sexual assault,” the judgment said.
“No accused can be convicted if the witness does not support the prosecution case or give quality evidence, as in the present case where the evidence of the victim is unreliable and untrustworthy…,” the judge added.
The medical evidence too was scanty, as per the judge, with the medical officer who examined the victim testifying that she did not observe any injuries on the victim’s private parts. The medical examination of the girl was conducted in June 2017.
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A hundred questions
Do you remember how your school was?
Did Santa Claus come to your school?
Did the boy teacher come to your classroom?
Did the boy teacher remove your knicker?
These were among the hundred questions the advocates gave the judge for the victim’s cross-examination. The significant questions to which the girl responded to — 64 in total — have been reproduced in the judgment.
To question number 85 — whether the boy teacher used to come to the classroom or touch your private parts and if it was a ‘secret’ between you and the accused number 2? — the victim nodded and said ‘yes’. While the special public prosecutor argued that considering the victim’s tender age, it is sufficient evidence on her part to prove the case, the judge said it cannot be read in isolation and called it “the only incriminating response” obtained by the prosecution.
The victim’s response was negative to several other questions such as whether the teacher used to remove her knicker or take off her pants, touch her vagina and whether the victim told the ‘secret’ to her mother.
To question number 100 on whether the victim told “police aunty that when accused number 2 used to take you and victim number 2 to other classroom, the boy teacher used to touch you and if this was a secret between you and the accused number 2,” the victim said, ‘No’.
On the other hand, the victim gave detailed descriptions of how her school was, that she likes that school better than her current school as it had a garden and children were given more time to play. To specific questions, the girl also gave details about how there was a ladder to climb a tree house and that she ate rice in the classroom and didn’t like the soup served in school, that there was no Santa Claus in her school.
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