• The Supreme Court on January 27 stayed the Bombay High Court order which acquitted a man under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act saying “groping a minor without skin-to-skin contact cannot be termed as sexual assault”.

• A bench of Chief Justice S.A. Bobde and Justices A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian stayed the High Court order after Attorney General K.K. Venugopal mentioned the matter.

• The top court also issued notice to Maharashtra government and permitted the AG to file an appeal against the January 19 verdict of the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court.

What is POCSO Act?

• The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, was enacted to protect children from offences of sexual assault, sexual harassment and pornography with due regard for safeguarding the interest and well-being of children.

• The Act defines a child as any person below 18 years of age, and regards the best interests and welfare of the child as a matter of paramount importance at every stage, to ensure the healthy physical, emotional, intellectual and social development of the child. 

• The Act is gender-neutral.

• The monitoring and implementation of this Act happens through the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and the state governments have been asked to appoint a senior nodal police officer for their state level Commission for Protection of Child Rights.

• In July 2019, the government amended the Act to make punishment more stringent for committing sexual crimes against children, including death penalty.

What is the case about?

• The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court, in a judgment passed on January 19, held that there must be “skin-to-skin contact with sexual intent” for an act to be considered sexual assault.

• The verdict said that mere groping will not fall under the definition of sexual assault.

• It said that since the man groped the child without removing her clothes the offence cannot be termed as sexual assault but it does constitute the offence of outraging a woman’s modesty under IPC Section 354.

• The High Court had modified the order of a sessions court, which had sentenced a 39-year-old man to three years of imprisonment for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl.

• While IPC Section 354 entails a minimum imprisonment for one year, sexual assault under the POCSO Act entails a minimum imprisonment of three years.

• The verdict had drawn the ire of child rights bodies and activists. The National Commission for Women (NCW) said the High Court judgment will have a cascading effect on various provisions involving the safety and security of women in general.

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