The Delhi High Court censured a mother for leveraging her minor daughter as a “weapon” in a matrimonial dispute by filing a complaint under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act against her estranged husband. The Court observed that the act of using the shield of child protection laws to further personal vendettas subverts the purpose of such legislation. In a ruling delivered by Justice Arun Monga, the Court stated that the protective provisions under the POCSO Act ought not to be misused to launch vindictive prosecutions.
In 2020, the mother filed a First Information Report alleging that her daughter—a minor—had been sexually abused by her father and his cousins. The background to this complaint included severe matrimonial acrimony between the spouses. The trial court had declined the mother’s petition to summon additional family members of the husband (including the victim’s grandmother and paternal aunts) as accused in the POCSO case, and had also imposed a cost of Rs 20,000 on her for pursuing that prayer.
On appeal, the mother challenged this order before the High Court. The Delhi High Court upheld the trial court’s order and imposed an additional cost of Rs 10,000 on the mother, which was to be paid to the Delhi Legal Services Authority. The Court characterized her conduct as an abuse of process, noting that what was presented as a demand for justice was in fact a mechanism for exerting pressure and inflicting legal burdens on the husband’s family. The Court specifically criticized the attempt to drag in elderly grandparents and paternal aunts—who appeared to have no discernible connection to the alleged incident—into the criminal proceedings. The judge held that such efforts betrayed a design to entangle innocent third parties in protracted litigation driven by personal animus.
The Court emphasized that summoning additional accused is a serious step that impinges on personal liberty, and thus must be grounded in credible and consistent evidence. Reliance on uncorroborated, inconsistent testimony of a minor child—especially when the testimony may be influenced by an interested parent—was deemed a perilous basis for widening criminal liability. The Court reiterated that misuse of the POCSO Act in such fashion not only jeopardizes the fairness and integrity of the proceedings but also dilutes the seriousness of offenses under the statute by reducing them to tools of vengeance.
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