Mumbai: Court acquits married woman, her lover in POCSO case

Mumbai: A special court under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) acquitted a 35-year-old man and the mother of two minor victims in a case, observing that the possibility can't be ruled out that they were falsely implicated as they were having an affair. 

The father of the children is a man with intellectual disability. The complaint was lodged against the mother for not taking action on the grievances of the children that the man, who is also their relative, was sexually assaulting them.

The complainant was angry, says court

The complainant was a cousin sister of the children, who the court later concluded was "angry" as the man was having an affair with her aunt.

In the complaint, the cousin sister had said that she had found the minor girl crying and even asked her the reason for it. The complainant had alleged that the man showed the children obscene videos and then touched them inappropriately on several occasions. 

During cross-examination, the 12-year-old girl and her 11-year-old brother had admitted that there was an affair between the man and their mother. The court said in its judgment that the cousin sister and the father of the victims decided to teach a lesson to the man for his liaison with the woman. Hence, it stated, that the possibility can't be ruled out that they are falsely implicated in the case. The court also noted that while one of the incidents of sexual assault was alleged to have taken place on a particular date in 2018 when the man was in jail in another case on that day as per a letter produced by the jail authority.