'Skin-to-Skin Contact': A-G Venugopal tells SC 'children most vulnerable to sexual crimes'

The Supreme Court on September 29 heard a plea by the Attorney General of India, KK Venugopal, against the impugned order passed by the Bombay High Court which held that groping breasts of a minor does not amount to sexual assault in the absence of a 'skin-to-skin contact'. The same is a pre-requisite in any sexual offence case to qualify under provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act or it would conclude as molestation, the Bombay HC had interpreted in the said order. 

"The judgement is outrageous and it would set a dangerous precedent," A-G had submitted during a hearing of the same case on August 25.

A-G Venugopal submitted that the order passed by Justice Pushpa Ganediwala of the Bombay HC (Nagpur Bench) demonstrates a lack of sensitivity to the known fact that children are most vulnerable to sexual abuses owing to their inability to defend themselves. Emphasising the seriousness of the matter, the Attorney General cited findings of Kailash Satyarthi's Report on the status of POCSO cases before different courts nationwide and brought the court's attention to the number of such cases reported in a year. In the absence of 'skin-to-skin contact', the top law officer contended that if a person donned gloves and sexually abused a child, he would be acquitted; as the man accused in the concerned case was acquitted via the impugned order. 

The court hearing shall be resumed on September 30 where Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra will appear for the accused. 

Attorney General urges Top Court to reverse 'skin-to-skin contact' POCSO judgement

On August 25, A-G Venugopal had stated that going by the approach of the Bombay HC, anybody can get away with a sexual assault offence by wearing surgical gloves. The Apex Court, which was hearing the distinct appeals of the A-G and the National Commission for Women (NCW), had stayed the Bombay HC verdict which acquitted a man under the POCSO Act saying "groping a minor's breast without 'skin to skin' contact cannot be termed as sexual assault". The verdict was criticised by legal experts and child rights activists.

Bombay HC's controversial 'skin-to-skin' sexual assault judgement 

Justice Pushpa Ganediwala of the Bombay HC (Nagpur Bench) had delivered two controversial judgements in sexual assault cases including the one which has come to be known as the 'skin-to-skin' contact verdict. The HC said that groping a minor's breast without 'skin to skin' contact cannot be termed as sexual assault as defined under the POCSO Act. It had also been said that since the man groped the child without scrapping her clothes, the act did not amount to a legal offence under the POCSO but it did constitute the offence of outraging a woman's modesty under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The Bombay HC modified the order of a sessions court that had sentenced a 39-year-old man to three years of imprisonment for sexually assaulting the 12-year-old girl. As per inputs of the prosecution and the minor victim's testimony in court, in December 2016, the accused had taken the girl to his house in Nagpur on the pretext of giving her something to eat. He allegedly then groped her breast and attempted to remove her clothes. However, since he groped her without removing her apparels, the HC did not term the act as sexual assault, instead, it termed it as an offence of outraging a woman's modesty under IPC.

Image: PTI/Representative