SC seeks details of pending POCSO cases before trial courts

New Delhi :  The Supreme court on Monday asked all the High Courts to furnish the details of all the POCSO-related cases pending before the trial courts in their respective states and the status of their trial.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said that the apex court’s registry would co-ordinate with the registries of the different High court to get the information.

The court sought the details on the pending POCSO cases, as petitioner advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava drew the attention of the top court towards 2016 report of National Crime Record Bureau which said that 89 per cent of the cases of sexual crime against children registered under POCSO were pending trial.

He told the court that of 1,01,326 cases including carry forward from previous year, 90,205 were pending in 2016.

The petitioner advocate on Monday made another attempt to urge the court to provide for death penalty in such cases as he referred to recent law passed by Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan providing for death penalty if the rape victim is up to the age of 12 years.

The Centre had on February 1, 2018 told the court that the death penalty was not the answer for every child sex abuse case and that graded penalties for graded offences have been provided under the POCSO Act, 2012.

“Death penalty is not an answer to every problem. There are graded penalities for graded offences under the POCSO,” Centre had told the court on February 1.

The hearing is rooted in the sexual assault of an eight–month-old baby by her cousin. The baby had undergone a surgery to repair the tears in her private parts at Kalawati Saran Children’s Hospital on January 30.

Later on the direction of the top court the victim baby was examined by a team of two doctors from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). After being examined by doctors from AIIMS, the victim baby was shifted to AIIMS.

The next hearing of the matter will be on April 20.

IANS