{"id":86289,"date":"2021-12-01T10:19:47","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T04:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oliveboard.in\/blog\/?p=86289"},"modified":"2021-12-01T10:46:35","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T05:16:35","slug":"attorney-general-for-india-vs-satish-another-summary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oliveboard.in\/blog\/attorney-general-for-india-vs-satish-another-summary\/","title":{"rendered":"Attorney General for India vs Satish & Another – Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mr. K. K. Venugopal, learned Attorney General for India, made a mention, bringing to our notice a judgment dated 19.01.2021 passed by the High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Nagpur Bench, in Criminal Appeal No.161\/2020 wherein the High Court has apparently acquitted the accused under Section 8 of the POCSO Act, 2012 on the ground that the accused had no sexual intent in committing the offence under POCSO Act because there was no direct phyical Signature Not Verified contact, i.e., skin to skin. Read the Summary of Attorney General for India vs Satish & Another. You can also download the actual judgment PDF from the blog. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Summary of Attorney General for India vs Satish & Another<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

[Special Leave Petition (Criminal) Diary No(S). 2286\/2021]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In what tantamount to a major relief for the Sexual Offences against Minor’s regime, the Supreme Court has set aside a profoundly contentious Bombay High Court ruling which had laid down that for an offence of sexual assault against a minor under Section 7 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act <\/em>2012, \u2018skin to skin\u2019 constituted an essential ingredient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Briefly, the facts pertained to a man who had lured a minor girl aged 12 into his house on the pretext of giving her guava and subsequently engaged in groping her and pressing her body parts from over her clothes while further attempting to remove her clothes. Very controversially, a single judge Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court interpreted the purport of Section 7 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act <\/em>2012 and its usage of the words \u2018touch\u2019 and \u2018physical contact\u2019 as necessitating \u2018skin to skin\u2019 contact in addition to the presence of \u2018sexual intent\u2019, in order to be punishable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Download the Supreme Court Judgement PDF Here<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

This line of reasoning was employed to acquit the accused of charges under Section 7 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act <\/em>2012, as according to the court, merely touching or pressing the clothed body of the girl was not sufficient to constitute \u2018skin to skin\u2019 contact. Instead, the accused was convicted of an offence under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code 1860 (which deals with assaulting a woman to outrage her modesty) and handed a jail term of 1 year. The judgment engendered a massive backlash in the legal community and was severely criticized for its regressive interpretation of Section 7 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act <\/em>2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

On appeal, the Supreme Court emphatically overruled<\/a> the judgment and held in clear terms that for an offence of \u2018sexual assault\u2019 as contemplated under Section 7 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act <\/em>2012, what is essential is the \u2018sexual intent\u2019 that accompanies the accused person\u2019s impugned conduct, and for the purposes of this assessment, \u2018skin to skin\u2019 contact holds no relevance whatsoever. The Apex Court’s intervention was sought to, vide an appeal filed by KK Venugopal (Attorney General of India), wherein he posited how the contentious judgment advanced a “very disturbing conclusion” and had the capacity to set a dangerous precedent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three-judge bench described the High Court’s assessment of the purport of Section 7 as absurd and noted how equating the requirements of ‘touch’ and ‘physical contact’ enumerated under the aforesaid section to instances of ‘skin to skin contact’ would end up destroying the rationale of the provision. The court noted how if such were the case, then an individual intending to assault a minor could conveniently resort to using surgical gloves in order to escape the requirement of & skin to skin’ contact and thus circumvent the provision\u2019s applicability. Furthermore, the intent of the legislature behind enacting the provision could only be effectuated if a wider interpretation was attributed to the text of the provision, rather than staying confined to a narrow and pedantic interpretation. This, according to the court, would entail scrutinizing whether the impugned act was accompanied with ‘sexual intent’, regardless of whether ‘skin to skin’ contact was involved in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n