The Madras High Court has held that exhibiting one's private parts to a minor child, without physical contact, does not constitute sexual assault under Section 7 of the POCSO Act but falls under sexual harassment punishable under Section 11, and reduced the appellant's sentence accordingly.
The Supreme Court has acquitted a man convicted of raping a five-year-old girl and sentenced to life imprisonment, holding that a Test Identification Parade conducted during investigation is not substantive evidence of identity, and that the prosecution's case was fatally deficient since the victim did not identify the accused when she deposited before the trial court, though he was present.
MP High Court upholds the conviction but commutes to life imprisonment the death sentence of a man found guilty of raping and murdering a two-year-old girl in Shahdol district, holding the case did not meet the "rarest of rare" threshold for capital punishment.
Bombay High Court quashes the freezing of roughly ₹100 crore in Coda Payments India's bank and payment-gateway accounts over an alleged online-gaming cheating scheme, holding the PMLA Adjudicating Authority never recorded the mandatory finding on "proceeds of crime" and that the freeze was disproportionate to the ₹25 lakh actually alleged.
Madras High Court acquits a man sentenced to death for allegedly sexually assaulting five minors, finding the child witnesses' evidence appeared tutored, the circumstances of the alleged assault implausible, and the accused's trial-stage legal representation inadequate.