Thane, Jun 30 A special court in Thane has sentenced a 30-year-old man to rigorous imprisonment (RI) of 20 years for frequently sexually assaulting a minor girl in 2022, noting that a child's consent is immaterial under the law and dismissing the defence's " love affair " argument.
The special POCSO court judge Premal Vithalani on Monday convicted Dhaneshwar alias Dhuleshwar Pujiyalal Kalasuva under section 376(2)(n) (repeated rape) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 6 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault) of the POCSO Act.
The court, however, acquitted Kalasuva of kidnapping charges, noting that the victim had accompanied him voluntarily to his native village in Rajasthan to get married and evade her family, thereby missing the essential legal ingredient of "taking" from lawful guardianship.
The judge also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on Kalasuva, which will be paid to the victim as compensation.
The prosecution examined seven witnesses during the trial.
An FIR was registered in July 2022 at Kapurbawadi police station against the accused. The victim, who sold sprouts next to the accused's tea stall in Majiwada, had told her mother that she was in a relationship with the accused, who established physical relations with her between June 2021 and June 2022.
The girl and the accused, then aged 26, eloped to his native village in Rajasthan. Following her return, a medical examination confirmed she was 20 weeks pregnant. Her pregnancy was subsequently terminated at the Civil Hospital, Thane, and DNA profiling established the accused as the biological father of the fetus, according to the prosecution.
The court demolished the defence's argument of a "consensual love affair," underscoring that the statutory age threshold creates an absolute bar.
"Section 375 of IPC shows that when the girl is below 18 years of age, even if sexual intercourse is with her consent, it would amount to rape. Similarly, under the POCSO Act, when the victim is below 18 years, her consent for sexual intercourse is immaterial. Once it is established that the victim was a child, the consent of the victim is immaterial," the court observed.
Defence counsel G P Gholap pleaded for minimum punishment, citing the consensual nature of the relationship and the accused's poor financial condition.
