The Karnataka Excessive Courtroom on June 10 declined to quash a Pocso case booked in opposition to an assistant professor of the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, accused of inappropriately touching youngsters invited to his daughter’s birthday celebration.
A single-judge bench of Justice M Nagaprasanna dominated that the trial needs to be accomplished inside three months.
The assistant professor’s nine-year-old daughter celebrated her birthday in 2018 with their neighbours’ youngsters. When the kids performed in a darkish room, one in all them was apparently poked within the eye, inflicting a commotion. The assistant professor went to the room and introduced the kids out. After the get together, the daddy of one of many youngsters together with some others accused him of touching the kids inappropriately, a cost he has denied.
A police grievance was registered the following day.
The counsel for the assistant professor argued that no such incident occurred, with the petitioner having intervened solely after the commotion. He additionally raised the difficulty of all of the witness youngsters having given verbatim comparable statements, additionally calling into query the cognisance of the decrease courtroom within the matter. He additionally raised the matter of the proof not being taken inside 30 days of the cognisance, and the trial having taken 4 years so far (trials in instances below the Safety of Youngsters from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act are to be accomplished inside one yr.) The alleged victims had been additionally not medically examined, he added.
The state counsel, nevertheless, argued that every one the questions had been issues to be addressed within the trial and that the assistant professor ought to due to this fact come out clear in a trial. He additionally said that problems with cognisance wouldn’t vitiate your complete proceedings, which the excessive courtroom agreed with.
The courtroom went on to state, “The contentions so superior by the petitioner are all within the realm of significantly disputed questions of truth, for which a full-blown trial is crucial…There’s an allegation in opposition to the petitioner, if true, squarely falls inside the statutory compass. The Police after investigation have filed the chargesheet. It could be that the statements recorded of the kids by the discovered Justice of the Peace are comparable with one another. This at greatest is an element for appreciation of proof, not a floor for pre-trial exoneration.”
The courtroom thus rejected the assistant professor’s petition to quash the proceedings.