The Madras High Court, invoking its inherent jurisdiction under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, has quashed criminal proceedings pending against a school teacher in Spl.C.C.No.151 of 2024 before the Special Court for POCSO Act Cases, Tirunelveli District. The proceedings involved allegations under Sections 7 and 8 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and Section 506(i) of the Indian Penal Code. The court observed that the prosecution was manifestly attended with mala fides and that continuation of the case would amount to abuse of the process of law, warranting judicial intervention to secure the ends of justice.
Justice L. Victoria Gowri, delivering the judgment, noted that while prosecutions under the POCSO Act deserve utmost seriousness and circumspection, the gravity of such allegations cannot eclipse the equally compelling duty of constitutional courts to prevent misuse of penal law. The court emphasised that where the materials, even taken at face value, do not disclose the ingredients of the alleged offences, or where the criminal process appears triggered by exaggeration of a trivial episode, or where the victim herself disowns the substratum of accusation, continuance of prosecution would itself amount to injustice. In the present case, the court interacted with the child victim in camera and found her conscious, coherent and unequivocally stating that she had not been subjected to sexual abuse by the petitioner. The court held that once the very alleged victim displaces the prosecutorial foundation, continuation of prosecution under Sections 7 and 8 of the POCSO Act would be wholly artificial.
The prosecution case, as unfolded in the complaint and final report, was that the victim girl, a VII Standard student, had disclosed to her mother that the petitioner, serving as Tamil Teacher, had subjected her to “bad touch” in the staff room on 12.12.2023 and threatened her with academic consequences. However, the court found multiple inconsistencies between the complaint, Section 161 Cr.P.C. statement and Section 164 Cr.P.C. statement of the prosecutrix. The allegation of intimidation was equally unsustainable, as the supposed statement that the child may not be permitted to write examinations emerged in the setting of classroom discipline and lacked ingredients of criminal intimidation under Section 506(i) IPC. Mere disciplinary admonition or academic warning cannot be elevated into criminal intimidation absent real threat contemplated by penal law. The court found that the alleged act, even taken at its highest, was a product of exaggeration of a classroom disciplinary episode and did not satisfy the legal ingredients of “sexual intent”, which is the gravamen of the offence under Section 7 POCSO Act.
The court observed that criminal law cannot be permitted to become an instrument to convert pedagogic correction into sexual crime. It noted that a teacher discharging legitimate disciplinary functions cannot be exposed to criminal prosecution upon exaggerated or misconceived allegations, for such misuse has the potential to corrode educational institutions themselves. The surrounding circumstances, including antecedent litigation, prior quashed prosecution, and present recantation by the victim, lent weight to the petitioner’s plea that the present prosecution was an abuse of process. The court invoked the principle embodied in Section 95 IPC that trivial acts causing slight harm beyond the threshold of criminal law do not warrant prosecution. Corrective classroom discipline, absent anything more, cannot be criminalised under a stringent child protection statute.
The court held that allegations under the POCSO Act deserve utmost seriousness, but false or exaggerated invocation of its provisions equally undermines the sanctity of the statute meant for genuine victims. Where prosecution rests not upon a real offence but upon misunderstanding amplified into accusation, judicial intervention is not merely permissible but imperative. In the result, the criminal original petition was allowed and the proceedings in Spl.C.C.No.151 of 2024 were quashed. Consequently, connected criminal miscellaneous petitions were closed.
Case Details:
Title: S. Rajadurai Lingam v. The State of Tamil Nadu and Another
Case No.: Crl.O.P.(MD).No.16736 of 2024 and Crl.M.P.(MD)Nos.10502 and 10504 of 2024
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