Delhi court acquits man charged with raping five-yr-old girl

New Delhi: A Delhi court has acquitted a man of the charge of raping a five-year-old girl after the child retracted from her statement.

Additional sessions judge Rajneesh Kumar Gupta freed the man, a resident of Ranjeet Nagar here, saying there was no evidence against him and the victim child deposed in the court that he did not do anything wrong with her.

"From the evidence on record, no substantive evidence has been come on record to prove that the accused has inserted a stick in the private part of the prosecutrix (child).

"Accordingly, the prosecution has failed to prove its case against the accused and the accused is acquitted of the charge," the court said while absolving the man of the charge of rape and aggravated sexual assault.

According to the prosecution, an FIR was lodged against the man in May last year regarding rape of the minor.

The complaint was made by the girl's mother alleging that when she had gone for work, the accused, who was known to them, took her daughter to his house on the pretext of giving her food and raped her by inserting a stick in her private part.

The woman came to know about this when she returned home and the child complaint of pain, the police said, adding that the man was arrested.

The child changed her statement in the court and deposed that the man had called her to his house to have some rice and at that time he was sweeping the floor with a broom. She said accidentally a broom stick struck her private part.

During the trial, the man claimed innocence and denied the allegation levelled against him.

The court acquitted the man, saying no such material has come on record which would support the case of prosecution.

It said the girl's statement recorded before a magistrate was a corroborative piece of evidence and the conviction cannot be based on the statement alone, unless there was a substantive evidence on record to prove the case.

Read More...

Notice to the Department of Telecom (DoT): Block Porn Websites

The Supreme Court of India has issued a notice to the Department of Telecom (DoT), seeking a response on how it plans to block porn websites, especially those that promote child sex abuse.

Supreme Court asks for response from DoT on child pornography. According to reports, the apex court bench led by Justice BS Chauhan used strong words saying “Nothing, you have to do it” in response toAdditional Solicitor General KV Viswanathan’s request for more time on a plea for blocking such websites in India.

Earlier this year, the court had granted the government an extension of four weeks to come up with a mechanism for blocking websites that contain or promote all sorts of child pornographic material.

It is worth mentioning that the central government, on multiple occasions expressed its inability to ban or block foreign-based porn sites in India due to several legal and technological constraints. In its defence, the government had stated that it was experiencing a lot of difficulties (primarily due to the physical location of the overseas-based servers) while trying to take measures against such websites in the country.

The bench later advised the government to work with all those ministries that can collectively bring forth a mechanism to enable strong and flexible actions on Internet child pornography.

The war against Internet pornography has intensified in the country following a PIL filed by Kamlesh Vaswani – an Indore-based lawyer who argued that even though watching porn is not a crime, such sites should be banned on the ground that they have been a prime cause of crime against women.

“The petitioner most respectfully submits that most of the offences committed against women/girls/children are fuelled by pornography. The worrying issue is the severity and gravity of the images are increasing. It is a matter of serious concern that prepubescent children are being raped,” the petition read, further adding, “At best, the IPC only recognises the offences of obscenity, kidnapping, abduction, and other related offences which are not sufficient to tackle the issue of pornography, and such videos,”.

Read More...