The law must be interpreted to provide additional protection to children against sexual assault
The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act was enacted in 2012 especially to protect children (aged less than 18) from sexual assault. The Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Act admitted that a number of sexual offences against children were neither specifically provided for in extant laws nor adequately penalised. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by India in 1992, also requires sexual exploitation and sexual abuse to be addressed as heinous crimes. It was therefore felt that offences against children be defined explicitly and also countered through commensurate penalties as an effective deterrence.
It was in this backdrop that the recent judgment of the Bombay High Court, in Satish Ragde v. State of Maharashtra, in which the accused was acquitted under the POCSO Act, came under massive criticism. The Bench acquitted a man found guilty of…