Supreme Court sets aside the Mumbai High Court’s Nagpur Bench’s decision. NCW lauds the SC verdict saying, it will uphold the legal n constitutional safeguards for women n children
In a highly laudable verdict, the supreme Court of India has today set aside the judgement of Mumbai High Court’s Nagpur Bench after hearing the petitions filed by the National Commission of Women, Attorney general, state of Maharashtra and Youth Bar Association challenging the Mumbai High Court’s decision saying that it will have a wide ramifications on the society and public at large.
Kindly recall that in its judgement of January 19, the Mumbai High Court’s Nagpur Bench held that skin to skin contact was necessary for the offence of sexual assault under the POSCO Act.
In their verdict today the three judge bench of Supreme Court comprising of justice U.U.Lalit, S.R.Bhatt and Bela M Trivedi ruled that the most important ingredient for constituting the offence of sexual assault is sexual intent and not skin to skin contact with the child. The construction of the rule should give effect to the rule rather than destroy it.Any narrow interpretation of the provision which defeat its object cannot be accepted.
The intention of the legislature cannot be given effect unless the wider interpretation is given said the bench hearing this case. The court also added that this is for the first time that the Attorney general had filed an appeal on the criminal side as per the report of NDTV.
Meanwhile the National Commission of Women’s chairperson has posted a press release of NCW on her Twitter handle hailing the verdict of Supreme Court of India for setting aside the judgement of Bombay High Court terming it highly laudable that will uphold the legal and constitutional safeguard for women and children.
According to the NCW press release the National Commission of Women welcome’s the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India’s order setting aside the Bombay High Court’s Nagpur Bench’s judgement that held that skin to skin contact was necessary for the offence of sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offence ( POSCO) Act. On February 4 th, the NCW had filed an SLP before the Supreme Court challenging the judgement stating that it would set a dangerous precedent for women safety.
The Commission while filing the Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court raised concern that the impugned order has far reaching ramifications for women and children, exposing them to be a desensitised society.
Such a narrow interpretation adopted by the high court in the impugned order would have a cascading effect on the safety of women and children said the press release.
While welcoming the apex court’s verdict the NCW stated that it will uphold the legal and constitutional safeguard for women and children.
According to NCW, the top court’s judgement said that sexual intent is important in such cases and that it can’t be taken away from the purview of the act enabling the offender to escape the meshes of law, which is not the purpose of law.
The top court noted that giving a narrow meaning of physical contact to confine it to skin to skin contact would defeat the purpose of POSCO ACT and it cannot be accepted added the NCW press release.
It may be recalled that the apex court had on January 27 stayed the January 19 judgement of Nagpur Bench of Mumbai High Court when the Attorney general brought this matter before the SC, allowing him to file an appeal against the verdict. The Attorney general had termed it as unprecedented setting a dangerous precedent.
