“Exorcist” and the schoolgirl’s father escaped the conviction of POCSO behavior because her age has always been suspicious

Images for representative purposes only | Image source: B. Velankanni Raj

Trigger warning: The following article mentions child sexual abuse, sexual assault and rape. Readers advise as appropriate.

The father of an “exorcist” and a female student escaped the 2012 punishment under the protection of children from sexual crimes (POCSO) because the prosecution failed to prove that she was only 16 years old, when the two suffered sexual assaults and aggravated transparent sexual assault.

Justices of Justice Ad Jagadish Chandira and K. Rajasekar ruled that the certificate issued by the school principal was not sufficient to prove the age of the victim. They said no radiologists who performed ossification tests and no evidence was marked as trial courts.

As a result, the judges put aside the belief of the girl’s father Gunasekaran and the “exorcist” Sivakumar, which had put aside the certain crimes for crimes under Section 7 (sexual assault) and Section 5 (serious permeability of sexual assault) and the trial court had cited five years of strict disdain and life sentence.

Accused of rape

However, due to the success of the additional prosecutor A. Thiruvadi Kumar, the girl’s father was convicted under Article 354 (Angry Indian Penal Code) (IPC) (IPC) and sentenced him to a simple prison sentence of three years.

The “Exorcist” was also found guilty of the IPC under Section 376(1)(1) (rap) and sentenced him to strict imprisonment for 10 years. This also reduces the amount of fines imposed by the trial court that sentences IPC offences under the POCSO Act of Rs 25,000, and the breach of contract is a simple imprisonment of one year.

The judge further ordered that the trial court orders compensation of Rs 7 lakh to be paid to victims by invoking provisions of the POCSO Act, but should be from the Tamil Nadu Victims Compensation Scheme/survivors of sexual assault/other crimes 2018.

What’s wrong?

According to the all-female police inspector in Ramanathapuram, the girl was first harassed by her father at the age of 14 in 2018 and studied at Level VII.

Later he moved abroad to work. As a result of returning to the country in 1920, the criminal continued to sexually assault his daughter and threatened her that he would suffer terrible consequences if revealed to his mother. At the same time, the mother was worried about her daughter’s behavior changes and brought her to the “exorcist” to seek remedies.

However, the exorcist was further subjected to penetrating sexual assault by a girl in 2021. The girl then opens to the mother, who immediately calls the child courtship 1098, resulting in registration of the POCSO ACT case for the father and the “exorcist”.

The defendant was found guilty

Although the offender made multiple reasons to attack the prosecution case and attempted to acquit the acquittal from all charges, the judge rejected the grounds and believed that the evidence of the prosecution was sufficient to prove the defendant’s guilt beyond all reasonable doubts.

The judges from the department also noted that the trial court held a joint trial of the two offenders and that while the alleged crimes were taken place in different places, the alleged crimes also occurred in different places.

“The defendants have learned of the allegations they have been facing trial and they are unable to establish the bias (if any) caused to them… The court found that due to their joint trial, there was no bias caused to them, nor was there any judicial misleading of the defendants,” he said.

The judgment was reserved on the Madurai bench in the Madras High Court but was made in the main seat in Chennai.