POCSO Act: Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, which deals specifically with child sexual abuse, has been in existence for ten years now. However, an analysis of this decade-old act has found gaps in its implementation - such as increasing pendency of cases and a high rate of acquittals.
The analysis, titled ‘A Decade of POCSO’, was carried out by the Justice, Access and Lowering Delays in India (JALDI) Initiative at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, in collaboration with the Data Evidence for Justice Reform (DE JURE) program at the World Bank. It analysed a total of 230,730 cases from 486 districts spanning 28 states and Union Territories, from 2012 to February 2021. Case laws, policy interventions and metadata were collected from the eCourts, the digital platform which gives information on pending cases, court orders, etc.
Pendency through the years
The number of pending POCSO cases was increasing gradually over the years, and to make matters worse there was a sharp rise of 24,863 cases in the number of pending cases between 2019 and 2020 which could be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact. While Uttar Pradesh has the highest pendency, Tamil Nadu has the highest disposal percentage at 80.2%.
Disposal of cases
On average, it takes 509.78 days for a POCSO case to be disposed of. Chandigarh and West Bengal are the only states where the average time taken for convictions is within the statutorily prescribed period of one year. In almost all other states, courts spend more time in hearing cases that ultimately end in conviction as compared to cases that end in acquittal. The average number of days taken per POCSO case in different states varies between 877.96 days (2 years and 5 months) in Himachal Pradesh to 215.43 days (7 months) in Chandigarh. According to the report by Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy the average number of days taken per POCSO case in different states varies between 877.96 days (2 years and 5 months) in Himachal Pradesh to 215.43 days (7 months) in Chandigarh.
Nature of POCSO cases
Over 56 per cent of all the POCSO cases are offences of penetrative sexual assault (31.18%) and aggravated penetrative sexual assault (25.59%), which prescribe the most stringent punishments under the POCSO Act.
About POCSO Act
The Parliament had passed the Protection Of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) Act in 2012 with an aim to address the evil of sexual abuse of children and sexual exploitation.
The Act, which was enforced from November 14, 2012, is gender-neutral. The Act clearly defines different forms of sexual abuse including but not limited to sexual harassment, pornography, penetrative & non-penetrative assault. The Act stipulates that such steps must be taken which makes the investigation process as child-friendly as possible and the case is disposed of within one year from the date of reporting of the offence.
There is a provision in the POCSO Act as per which Special Courts can be established for the trial of such offences and matters related to it.
