Bengaluru: Describing the more than 10-year delay in the trial of a child sexual abuse case as a “tragedy” in the administration of criminal justice, Karnataka high court has directed a special Pocso court to conclude the proceedings within eight weeks. The court said repeated adjournments defeat the very purpose of the Pocso Act, which envisages swift trials so child survivors can return to normal life at the earliest.In the same order, Justice M Nagaprasanna held that neither the Pocso Act nor the provisions governing statements recorded under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) require a child survivor to sign such statements.The July 3 order came while the high court was hearing a challenge by the survivor’s father to a Feb 20, 2024 order of the special court refusing to summon the magistrate who recorded his daughter’s Section 164 statement to examine its authenticity and veracity.The case relates to allegations that a six-year-old girl was sexually assaulted in 2014 by a security guard, an attendant and others at a school in east Bengaluru.Rejecting the father’s plea, Justice Nagaprasanna observed that the Pocso Act, despite providing elaborate procedural safeguards, does not require a child to append a signature to a statement recorded under Section 164. “This legislative omission is neither inadvertent nor accidental. It is a conscious recognition of the peculiar vulnerability of child survivors,” the court said.The judge also noted that the law protects all children below 18 years of age, including toddlers incapable of speech, young children unable to understand the significance of a signature, and adolescents traumatised by abuse. “To insist upon the signature of every child, irrespective of age, maturity or mental condition, would be to import into the statute a requirement which the legislature, in its wisdom, deliberately refrained from engrafting,” the court observed.The court also held that a magistrate who records a statement under Section 164 cannot be summoned merely because a party harbours speculative doubts about its authenticity or seeks to rectify perceived procedural irregularities.‘Instrument of oppression’Expressing concern over the prolonged trial, Justice Nagaprasanna observed: “The crime was registered in 2014. What has unfolded thereafter is a tragedy that ought not to have found a place in the administration of criminal justice.” The case, he noted, had meandered through repeated adjournments before reaching the high court on an issue collateral to the merits of the prosecution. “A child who has suffered the indignity of sexual abuse cannot be compelled to relive the trauma endlessly because the criminal justice system has surrendered to the culture of adjournments. Every unnecessary adjournment compounds the original injury and converts the process itself into an instrument of oppression,” the judge said.Referring to repeated Supreme Court directions, the court reiterated that speedy trials are a constitutional mandate, not merely an administrative convenience. It noted that Section 309 of CrPC, now Section 346 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, requires criminal trials to proceed on a day-to-day basis once witness examination begins.Observing that a prosecution expected to conclude within a year had remained pending for over a decade, the high court directed the Bengaluru special court to complete the trial within eight weeks and instructed all parties to cooperate by avoiding unwarranted adjournments and other delay tactics.
