Madras HC Confirms Death Penalty For Man Who Sexually Assaulted Three Minor Girls [Read Judgment]

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has confirmed the death sentence awarded to a man convicted of repeatedly committing aggravated penetrative sexual assault on three minor girls aged between six and eight years over a period of nearly one year, holding that the case fell within the rarest of rare category warranting the extreme penalty.

A Division Bench of Justice N. Anand Venkatesh and Justice K.K. Ramakrishnan was dealing with a reference made by the Sessions Judge, Special Court for POCSO Act cases, Tirunelveli, under Section 407 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, seeking confirmation of the death sentence, along with a connected criminal appeal filed by the convict, Anandhasekar, challenging his conviction and sentence.

According to the prosecution, the accused was a neighbour of the three victim girls, whose parents were daily wage labourers who left home early in the morning and returned late in the evening. The children used to play near the house of the grandmother of one of the victims every Saturday, and it was alleged that the accused would take the three girls inside the house, lock the door and subject them to repeated sexual assault, threatening them with a knife and warning them against disclosing the abuse to their parents.

The matter came to light after the mother of one of the victims overheard her daughter speaking about the abuse to a friend. On being questioned, all three girls disclosed the assault, following which a complaint was lodged and an FIR was registered under Sections 5(l) and 5(m) read with Section 6 of the POCSO Act, along with Sections 342 and 506(II) of the Indian Penal Code.

The trial Court had convicted the accused under Sections 450, 366 (three counts), 342 (three counts) and 506(II) (three counts) of the IPC, besides Sections 5(l) and 5(m) read with Section 6 of the POCSO Act, and sentenced him to death for the POCSO offences, with the sentences directed to merge for the purpose of execution since a death sentence can be carried out only once.

Appearing for the accused, the Senior Counsel contended that the evidence of the child witnesses was unnatural and improved with successive narrations, indicating tutoring, and that the medical evidence did not corroborate the charge of aggravated penetrative sexual assault since the examining doctor found no internal injuries and the hymen intact in respect of two of the victims. It was further argued that the delay in lodging the complaint and in forwarding witness statements to the trial Court remained unexplained, and that, at best, the case fell under the lesser offence of aggravated sexual assault, punishable with a maximum of seven years.

The State Public Prosecutor countered that delay in reporting offences under the POCSO Act could never be a determining factor given the trauma and stigma associated with such crimes, and that the foundational facts having been established, the presumption under Sections 29 and 30 of the POCSO Act stood triggered, with the accused having failed to discharge the reverse burden placed on him. It was also submitted that medical corroboration was not mandatory where the testimony of the child victims was found credible and consistent.

Examining the evidence, the Bench held that the consistent and corroborated testimony of the three child witnesses could not be dismissed as tutored merely because of minor variations between their statements recorded under Section 164(5) of the Cr.P.C. and their deposition before the Court, observing that such gaps were natural given the children's age and the passage of time. The Court held that the evidence had to be appreciated from the standpoint of the child and not by the yardstick applied to adult witnesses.

On the question of whether the offence amounted to penetrative sexual assault under Section 3 of the POCSO Act, the Bench held that the description given by the victims, including the use of fingers, the placing of the accused's penis on their genitals and the use of his tongue, squarely satisfied clauses (a), (b) and (d) of the provision, irrespective of the absence of injury or rupture of the hymen, since the definition was deliberately drafted to be exhaustive given that a child's body is not akin to that of an adult.

The Court also upheld the conviction under Section 450 IPC for house trespass, Section 366 IPC for the abduction of the girls for the purpose of the assault, Section 342 IPC for wrongful confinement, and Section 506(II) IPC for criminal intimidation through repeated threats with a knife.

Turning to sentencing, the Bench extensively examined the principles governing the death penalty under the Bachan Singh and Machhi Singh line of precedent, as well as its own earlier exposition in State v. Murugan on the graded sentencing structure under Section 6 of the POCSO Act following the 2019 amendment, which the Court read as contemplating three categories of punishment, a minimum term of twenty years, imprisonment for the remainder of natural life, and the death penalty reserved for the rarest of rare cases.

The Bench noted nine aggravating circumstances recorded by the trial Court, including the systematic and premeditated nature of the abuse repeated every Saturday over a year, the breach of trust by a person the children addressed as their uncle, the use of threats and a knife to silence the victims, the commission of the offence on one child in the presence of the others, and the accused's antecedents as a habitual offender, against which it found the mitigating factors of his age and economic background insufficient to tilt the balance.

The Court drew a distinction between death as a final and irreversible act foreclosing any possibility of reform, and life imprisonment till the end of one's natural life as a continuing form of accountability, but ultimately concluded that the case before it, involving three victims below the age of twelve subjected to repeated and aggravated assault, fell within the extreme end of the spectrum warranting capital punishment rather than the alternative of life imprisonment.

The accused person does not deserve any leniency and any punishment less than death sentence will fall short of the societal expectation that the children safety is paramount. The accused person, who has destroyed the soul and dignity of three children, is not fit to live in the society and for the heinous crime committed by him, he has to necessarily lose his life. 

In its concluding remarks, the Bench observed that “A crime so grotesque, so utterly devoid of a shred of human conscience, demands a judicial response that mirrors society’s collective abhorrence,” adding that to spare the accused would amount to an act of misplaced mercy that renders the law a silent spectator to the destruction of the innocent.

Holding that the convict had forfeited his right to remain in society, the Court remarked that “The prisoner has forfeited his right to walk among humanity,” before going on to confirm the conviction and sentence in their entirety.

Accordingly, the Court confirmed the death sentence imposed by the trial Court for the offences under Sections 5(l) and 5(m) read with Section 6 of the POCSO Act, upheld the conviction and sentence on the remaining charges, and dismissed the criminal appeal filed by the accused. 

The Registry was directed to redact the identities of the victims from all records, communicate the order to the trial Court, and ensure that the convict, lodged at the Central Prison, Palayamkottai, is provided legal assistance to pursue a further appeal if he so chooses.

Appearances:

For the State: Mr. John Sathyan, State Public Prosecutor, assisted by Mr. G. Karuppasamy Pandian, Counsel for the State.

For the Accused: Mr. V. Kathirvelu, Senior Counsel for Mr. K. Prabhu.

Case Title: State of Tamil Nadu v. Anandhasekar

[Read Judgment]