The Supreme Court has set aside a Bombay High Court order that held that touching a minor's breast with a cloth top would not amount to sexual harassment. Justice Pushpa Ganediwala of the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court, while referring to the POCSO Act, said that if skin-to-skin contact is not done under this law, then it will not be called sexual harassment. Such cases cannot be defined under the POCSO Act.
Justice Bela Trivedi termed the High Court's decision as absurd and said, "The condition of physical or skin contact to constitute an offense under the POCSO Act is absurd and will completely defeat the very purpose of the law, which is to protect children from sexual offenses." Designed to protect from This would be a very strange situation. The top court said that the rules should be such that they strengthen the law and not defeat its purpose.
Let us tell you that the Bombay High Court had held that touching the internal part of a minor without removing the clothes. It is not a sexual assault unless there is a skin-to-skin touch. During the hearing of the appeal filed against this decision. A bench headed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court had stayed the order of the High Court on 27 January.
According to the prosecution, the case dates back to December 14, 2016. When the girl's mother gave a statement in front of the police that the accused took her 12-year-old daughter on the pretext of feeding her and misbehaved with her. Tried to open her clothes and pressed her inner part on top of the clothes. So the trial court convicted the accused under POCSO in the case and sentenced him to three years' imprisonment. However, the High Court modified the order and treated the case as tampering under Section 354 of the IPC. So not as sexual assault under POCSO. So the Bombay High Court had said that without removing the clothes, this case does not constitute sexual assault under POCSO.