A division bench of the Delhi High Court has held that the Border Security Force (BSF) Act empowers the General Security Force Court (GSFC) to try offences under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The bench, comprising Justice C Hari Shankar and Justice Om Prakash Shukla, reached this conclusion while dismissing a petition filed by one Rakesh Babu, an assistant Sub-Inspector (Vet) in Assam. The petition challenged his conviction and sentence by the GSFC in a POCSO case, and also the refusal of the confirming authority to set aside his sentence via a pre-confirmation petition.
The facts of the case are that Rakesh Babu was alleged to have sodomised a ten-year-old boy in 2021. Further, it was alleged that he threatened to kill the child if the boy reported the incident to anyone. The GSFC tried the case, convicted him, sentenced him to rigorous imprisonment for twenty years, and dismissed him from service. Babu filed a petition challenging the validity of the GSFC’s jurisdiction to try a POCSO offence, among other grounds.
The Court first addressed the jurisdictional issue. It held that the provisions of the BSF Act, when read along with Section 42A of the POCSO Act—which preserves the jurisdiction of other authorities under other statutes—clearly show that the GSFC is empowered to try POCSO offences. The court said that every offence triable by a criminal court is also a “civil offence” for the purposes of the BSF Act under Section 2(1)(q), which defines “offence.” Because POCSO offences are criminal offences triable by a criminal court, they fall within the definition in the BSF Act. This, the court held, defeats the contention that the GSFC lacked jurisdiction in relation to POCSO offences.
The petitioner also contended that he was not provided certified copies of the statements of the prosecution witnesses, and that he was only allowed to inspect the case file but not get certified copies. The Bench rejected that argument, ruling that allowing inspection of those witnesses’ statements sufficed, and that no prejudice had been shown to have resulted from not providing certified copies.
Having addressed those contentions, the Court affirmed the decision of the GSFC in its entirety. The GSFC’s conviction, sentence, and dismissal of the petitioner from service stood affirmed. The writ petition filed by Rakesh Babu was dismissed.
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