Armed Forces Tribunal upholds 5-year RI to Army Officer for sexual assault on girl

The tribunal, comprising Justice Shailendra Shukla and Vice-Admiral Abhay Raghunath Karve, had last month passed its verdict in the officer’s plea challenging the GCM’s order of March 2021 that awarded the sentence. The GCM had noted that the appellant will “be cashiered (dismissed) and suffer rigorous imprisonment for five years”. The 57-year-old appellant officer sought for the punishment to be mitigated in view of his health and commuted to a lesser jail term, which the tribunal denied.

In his complaint, the minor’s father had stated that in February, 2020 after he wished the appellant as per protocol, the latter inquired about the former’s well-being and about his family members. The complainant told the appellant about his two minor children, an 11-year-old daughter and a younger son. After the appellant sought to meet them, the complainant went back to his own residence and brought his children to where the appellant was.

The appellant asked the minor girl a few general questions and told the complainant that he knew palmistry. As per the complaint, the appellant took the girl’s hand and started to study it and later asked her father to bring a pen. As the father went out to fetch a pen along with his son, the appellant touched the minor girl’s thigh, making her uncomfortable.

The appellant allegedly asked the girl as to whether he can kiss her as a friend. She pushed him back and started to cry. After the complainant came back and saw his daughter crying, he inquired and learnt about the incident from her, prompting him to report about the same.

The GCM trial commenced for offences punishable under Protection of Children From Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 and a provision of the Army Act in February 2021. The appellant was convicted the following month.

Representing the appellant, advocate H S Verma claimed the complainant had “tutored his daughter” and cooked up the story with a grudge against him, as he allegedly declined his request to attend a certain course which was necessary for promotion.

The appellant further claimed he interacted as a “grand-father/father figure” with the children without any bad intention.

In its verdict, the AFT noted that the appellant’s argument of having no sexual intention was “not creditworthy” as he had sought a kiss, which was “not in a nature of parent like figure, and while saying so, he had inappropriately placed his hand on the thigh of girl and held the hands of the girl with his other hand”.

“Such touch could immediately be sensed as bad touch by the girl child. Therefore, the appellant was indeed having sexual intent and with that intent he had touched the hands and leg of the girl child. Such act with sexual intent proves that there was sexual assault by the appellant on the girl child,” the tribunal observed.

It also noted that being in an “inebriated” state was “no excuse” as the appellant was “not made to consume liquor deceitfully by any other person”.

The tribunal held the appellant’s claim of “false implication” to be “far fetched”.

“No person would involve the factum of breach of modesty of his own daughter as a weapon against another person in order to seek vengeance…There is nothing to disbelieve the girl child, she had met the appellant for the first time ..She could sense the inappropriate nature of touch through her sixth sense and her doubts rightly turned into belief when the appellant propositioned her for a kiss,” the bench observed and rejected the plea.