NEW DELHI: A bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice Manoj Misra and Justice K.V. Viswanathan has held that "knowledge that such an offence has been committed" under Section 19(1) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 is not restricted to what a person perceives directly through his own senses, but extends to credible information received straight from the child victim, while partly allowing an appeal filed by a minor rape survivor's mother against an order discharging the headmistress and other staff of the victim's school of the charge of failing to report the offence.
The appeal arose from an FIR lodged in April 2020 alleging that the appellant's eight-year-old daughter had been raped by a Class VIII student in November 2019 inside a classroom of her boarding school in Arunachal Pradesh. The victim had informed her elder sister, a friend and the school's Head Girl, who in turn informed the headmistress. The headmistress took the victim to another teacher's room, examined her private parts, found sticky substance on her undergarments along with redness and swelling, and yet directed the victim not to disclose the incident to anyone. The school constituted an internal committee of teachers to observe the victim and the juvenile, concluded from their conduct that nothing had happened, and did not report the matter to the police or the child's parents. The matter came to light only months later, in March 2020, when the victim's mother overheard her discussing the abuse with her sister.
Besides the juvenile offender, who was chargesheeted under Section 376AB of the Indian Penal Code read with Section 6 of the POCSO Act, the police report also indicted the headmistress and six other teachers and school officials under Sections 176, 201 and 120B of the IPC read with Section 21(2) of the POCSO Act for omitting to report the offence, causing disappearance of evidence, and conspiring to suppress the incident. The Trial Court discharged all the accused, holding that no witness had corroborated the claim of sticky substance or redness on the victim's private parts, and that the school's internal observation exercise showed no ill intent. The Gauhati High Court, Itanagar Bench, upheld the discharge, reasoning that since the medical examination found no sign of sexual assault and the accused had questioned the juvenile and reviewed CCTV footage without finding anything amiss, they could not be attributed "knowledge" or "reason to believe" that an offence had occurred.
Before the Supreme Court, the appellant argued that the police report showed the teachers and school administration had knowledge of the incident and were therefore bound to report it, and that they could not, on their own analysis, discard the victim's complaint as false. The respondents argued that none of them had personal knowledge of any offence, that the medical report did not support the prosecution's case, and that there was no positive act of concealment or conspiracy attributable to them.
Examining the scope of a discharge application, the Court reiterated that at this stage the Trial Court must proceed on the assumption that the material collected during investigation is true, and need only ascertain whether it creates grave suspicion of guilt, not whether it would sustain a conviction. Turning to the police report, the Court noted that the word "knowledge" is not defined anywhere in the POCSO Act or in the other statutes to which the Act cross-refers, and traced its meaning through earlier rulings holding that knowledge is a state of mind on a higher plane than "reason to believe" and that a person can ordinarily be supposed to know only where there is a direct appeal to his senses.
The Court held that confining "knowledge" under Section 19(1) to what a person perceives with his own senses, while excluding knowledge based on credible information received from the child, would defeat the statute's purpose and render its provisions for the child's emergency care and protection unworkable.
"It is a matter of common understanding that sexual offences are rarely committed in public gaze. These offences usually occur in the confines of secrecy."
The Court accordingly held that when a child victim reports to a person that she has been subjected to an offence under the Act, that person is deemed to have "knowledge" of its commission for the purposes of Section 19, and cannot lawfully substitute his own verification exercise for the statutory duty to report.
It clarified, however, that this obligation attaches only to those to whom the victim directly disclosed the incident, and that among the accused, only the headmistress, fell in that category, since the victim had informed her elder sister, her friend and the Head Girl, all of whom were themselves minors and thus exempt from prosecution under Section 21(3) of the Act, besides the headmistress.
The other teachers and the Principal, the Court found, had no direct disclosure from the victim and could not be shown to have conspired to suppress the incident merely because they participated in the school's internal fact-finding exercise.
The Court set aside the discharge of Headmistress for offences under Section 21 read with Section 19(1) of the POCSO Act and Section 176 of the IPC, directing the Trial Court to proceed against her in accordance with law, while declining to interfere with the discharge of the remaining accused. It clarified that its observations were not an expression of opinion on the merits of the allegations, which the Trial Court would examine strictly in accordance with law.
Appearances: For the Appellant: Shri Jitendra Mohan Sharma, Senior Advocate. For Respondent No.1: Shri Satya Kam Sharma, Advocate. For Respondent Nos.3, 5, 6 and 7: Ms. Jagriti S. Jadeja, Advocate.
Case Title: AAA vs. Linda Sema & Ors., Criminal Appeal No. of 2026 (Arising out of SLP Criminal No. 4772 of 2024)
