In a judgment passed on January 19, the Bombay high court has said groping a minor's breast without 'skin-to-skin contact' cannot be termed sexual assault as defined under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
The order was passed by Justice Ram Manohar Narayan Mishra on a revision petition filed by two persons who moved the court, challenging the order of a Special Judge of Kasganj by which the court had summoned them under Section 376 of IPC apart from other sections.
As the police said they have a list of 8,000 accused and the drive will continue, women protested against the move in various districts saying they will face problems without livelihoods.
Two officials of a children's shelter home in Karjat taluka of Maharashtra's Raigad district were arrested on charges of sexually abusing five minor inmates, police said on Thursday.
A Bihar court on Thursday awarded 10 years imprisonment to Praduman Kumar, locally known as 'Father Teressa', head of Lok Seva Ashram, an orphanage in village Chakwaja under Patedhi Belsar block in Vaisali district, for sexually abusing children.
Amid protests in Barak Valley, Morigaon and Dhubri, the crackdown on child marriage in Assam entered the fourth day on Monday, with the number of arrests rising to 2,441.
Police said they registered a case on Saturday under provisions of the POCSO Act and the IPC, and arrested the accused.
A 40-year-old Indian doctor was held in a US jail on a USD 2 million bond after being charged with multiple sex crimes for allegedly recording hundreds of nude images and videos of children and women over several years, according to media reports.
Sources said the Law Commission held a meeting with the government and sought some information on the matter of age of consent.
The court said that in the instant case the investigating officer adopted a "lethargic attitude" throughout the investigation.
Police sources said the seer was questioned for several hours after his arrest late on Thursday night. He reportedly developed some health complication soon after he was sent to jail.
The attendant of a school in east Bengaluru has been arrested for sexually abusing a three-year-old student.
Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Telegram, is under formal investigation related to illicit activities on the messaging app.
The Delhi high court on Tuesday dismissed a public interest litigation over the alleged molestation of a boy by the Dalai Lama, as claimed to have been shown in a video clip that went viral last year, saying the religious leader was "being playful" and has already apologised for the incident.
The high court said there was no infirmity in the order passed by a trial court recommending the extradition of accused Bernd Alexander Bruno Wehnelt to face trial for the offences under the German Criminal Code.
The sexual assault on a 3-and-half-year-old girl student at a school has been confirmed by doctors, as police on Wednesday intensified the probe into the horrific incident which evoked protest from parents.
Two days after the sexual assault on a 3-and-half-year-old girl student at a school in Bangalore, police are yet to arrest the culprit, as the state government on Thursday decided to file a criminal case against the institution for violating several rules.
Gandhi on Wednesday met the family of the nine-year-old girl and asserted that he is with them on the path to justice and "will not back down even an inch".
The Assam cabinet on Monday decided to book men who marry girls below 14 years in the state under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
The court denied bail to a 31-year-old man charged under the Act for allegedly abducting and impregnating a 15-year old minor girl whom he claims he had married.
A former deputy head teacher at a London primary school who had pleaded guilty to paying and instructing teenagers in India to abuse younger children was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Wednesday.
A prominent seer in Karnataka booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) on Monday broke his silence over the issue, claiming it was part of a long drawn conspiracy against him, indicated an inside job and vowed to come out clean in a case of sexual abuse of high school girls.
On the complaint of the boy's parents, a case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act has been registered against unknown persons at the Thakupukur Police Station, a senior officer of the Kolkata police said.
The committee said that the girl was a minor as per the class 10 board examination mark sheet and not an adult as claimed by the police.
The school, situated in Junwani, some 60 kilometres from the district headquarters, is run by Jabalpur Diocesan Education Society of the Roman Catholic community, he said.
Criticism against the August 12 order continued to pour in from the state and various parts of the country with National Commission for Women chairperson Rekha Sharma and senior Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo member Brinda Karat strongly condemning the sessions court judge's observation.
His comments come in the backdrop of the state government deciding to bring stringent laws and evoking the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act to check child marriages and underage motherhood.
The Supreme Court of India has formed a National Task Force (NTF) to address the growing concern of student suicides in higher educational institutions. The court took note of the recurring cases and directed Delhi Police to register FIRs on the complaints of families of two students who died by suicide at IIT Delhi in 2023. The NTF, chaired by former apex court judge Justice S Ravindra Bhat, will prepare a comprehensive report, including the identification of causes leading to suicides, analysis of existing regulations, and recommendations for strengthening protections. The NTF will also have the authority to conduct surprise inspections of higher educational institutions and make further recommendations to ensure a holistic approach to addressing mental health concerns and eliminating suicides.
The Kerala police were the most sensitised to the rights of those arrested while that of Jharkhand and Gujarat the least.
The girl and a man were taken into custody on June 21 in connection with a child marriage case.
He said the incident occurred on August 12 at the busstahd and the police were informed about it Saturday evening.
The girl's mother alleged that her daughter was "inappropriately touched" by a classmate.
The Supreme Court Thursday reserved judgement on appeals against the Bombay High Court verdict which had held that no offence of sexual assault under the POCSO Act is made out if there is no direct 'skin-to-skin' contact between accused and the victim.
An office assistant, who was arrested for the sexual assault of a three-and-a-half-year-old girl at a Bangalore school, was on Sunday remanded to six days police custody by a magisterial court.
The NCPCR asked Facebook for taking appropriate action against the Instagram profile of Gandhi over violation of provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, and the Indian Penal Code, and demanded the removal of the video from the platform.
The apex court also asked the the high courts to instruct the trial courts not to grant unnecessary adjournments during trial of cases.
The Supreme Court Wednesday agreed to hear a plea filed by the National Commission for Women (NCW) challenging the Bombay high court verdict which said that groping a minor's breast without 'skin to skin contact' cannot be termed as sexual assault as defined under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
On January 19, the high court had said that groping a minor's breast without "skin to skin contact" cannot be termed as sexual assault as defined under the POCSO Act.
According to the procedure, all reports of the law panel are submitted to the Union law ministry, which then forwards those to the ministries concerned.
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