LI Network
Published on: 23 September 2023 at 11:30 IST
The Supreme Court of India underscored that an acquittal in a case involving child sexual assault should not be considered clean when the trial has witnessed witnesses retracting their statements and the complainant recanting her allegations.
The Court made this significant observation while upholding the decision of the Madhya Pradesh police not to appoint an individual accused under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act) as a police constable, despite his acquittal in the case.
A bench comprising Justices Hima Kohli and Rajesh Bindal delivered this judgment in reference to a case where the survivor failed to support the prosecution’s case, resulting in the acquittal of the accused. The bench noted, “The respondent was acquitted by the trial Court primarily on account of the fact that the complainant did not support the case set up by the prosecution and the other prosecution witnesses had turned hostile. In such circumstances, the respondent’s plea that he had been given a clean acquittal in the criminal case is found to be devoid of merits.”
This ruling came in connection with the reinstatement of a Madhya Pradesh High Court single-judge order that upheld the State police’s decision to reject the appointment of the accused, who had been acquitted in the POCSO case.
The original case stemmed from a 2015 incident in which the accused and others were alleged to have wrongfully confined a minor complainant and attempted to violate her modesty. During the trial, a compromise was reached between the accused and the survivor, leading to the compounding of the charge of wrongful restraint.
Consequently, the accused was acquitted of charges related to sexual harassment and outraging the modesty of the minor, as the survivor retracted her earlier statements, and witnesses turned hostile.
The accused subsequently applied for a constable’s position in the Madhya Pradesh police, but a Superintendent of Police, during the final stages of the selection process, deemed him unsuitable for the role due to the moral turpitude associated with the POCSO offenses. While a single judge of the High Court declined to intervene in the police’s decision, a division bench allowed the accused’s appeal.
The State government challenged the division bench’s ruling before the Supreme Court, which noted that disclosing the POCSO complaint during the police job application did not render the trial court’s judgment as a clean acquittal.
The Court stressed that the standards for candidates seeking positions in law enforcement should be stringent compared to other professions. Once appointed to a law enforcement role, individuals have a heightened responsibility to uphold the law, protect public life and property, and maintain high moral standards.
The Supreme Court concluded that mere acquittal in this case would not automatically qualify the accused for the constable position, thereby affirming the State government’s decision as neither malicious nor arbitrary.
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