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No CCTV footage, no forensic report: Hospital staffer acquitted in sexual harassment case after 5 years due to lack of evidence

On January 1, 2020, a senior resident at the hospital had alleged that the accused, assigned with cleaning and sweeping duties, had taken a video of her while she was changing clothes after an operation.

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During the trial, the woman deposed about the incident, along with two other colleagues but the defence said that there was no other corroborative evidence to prove the case.

A 36-YEAR-OLD staffer at a public hospital was acquitted of charges of sexual harassment of a doctor as police failed to collect CCTV footage from the spot of the incident, among other grounds.

On January 1, 2020, a senior resident at the hospital had alleged that the accused, assigned with cleaning and sweeping duties, had taken a video of her while she was changing clothes after an operation. The woman had noticed a mobile phone. She saw the accused taking a video and confronted him and found a video of the ceiling of the changing room. An FIR was filed with the Mumbai police under section 354(C) (voyeurism: any man who watches, or captures the image of a woman engaging in a private act) of the Indian Penal Code against the staffer. While the phone was seized and sent to the forensic science laboratory, even after five years, a report on it was not submitted to the court.

“Non-filing of a forensic report on a mobile phone in a case of section 354C IPC can be a fatal flaw in the prosecution’s case, especially if the phone is relevant to the incident. It creates doubt about the prosecution case. Thus, the absence of a forensic report on the accused’s mobile phone, significantly impacts the prosecution’s case,” the metropolitan magistrate D M Mata said in the order passed on May 29.

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During the trial, the woman deposed about the incident, along with two other colleagues but the defence said that there was no other corroborative evidence to prove the case. “It is to be noted that in a city like Mumbai, generally, CCTVs are installed at every place. Notably, the spot of the incident is situated in a hospital. Thus, a question arose as to why the investigating officer has not collected the CCTV footage outside of the changing room where the accused is alleged to have been apprehended by the informant (victim). The CCTV footage being a crucial piece of evidence, it is for the prosecution to have produced the best evidence, which is missing in this case,” the court said.

It said that under these circumstances, the prosecution failed miserably to prove the involvement of the accused in the case.

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