Delhi High Court says POCSO cases need forensic proof, upholds sentence

The Delhi High Court today reinforced that courts must not treat the recantation of a child victim as dispositive in POCSO prosecutions where independent scientific or medical evidence supports the prosecution. In a judgment upholding the conviction and a 20 year sentence imposed under Section 6 of the POCSO Act, the bench relied heavily on forensic analysis that linked the accused to biological material recovered from the victim's undergarment.

The case arose after the complainant reported that her minor daughter had been sexually assaulted at midnight by her stepfather. The complaint was lodged only after the complainant consulted the victim's sister and mother. At trial the victim, the sister and the mother later recanted earlier statements. The prosecution argued that those retractions were the product of family pressure and coercion, a dynamic the court said is common when the accused is a caregiver, breadwinner or family member.

Independent scientific evidence from a forensic science laboratory formed the core of the court's assessment. The FSL report indicated that the DNA profile of the appellant matched material obtained from the victim's undergarment. The High Court treated that finding as material that could not be ignored merely because the child witness had turned hostile during evidence. The judgment emphasized that hostility must be weighed in conjunction with all other material on record, including medical reports and circumstantial facts.

The court reiterated that statutory safeguards embedded in the POCSO framework impose duties on police and child welfare mechanisms to provide immediate protection and rehabilitation to victims, and that those obligations reinforce the need for substantive scrutiny rather than mechanical dismissal when witnesses recant. The bench also observed that psychological and social pressures within families often explain why child victims withdraw or alter testimony, and that courts must account for such vulnerability in their fact finding.

In addressing statutory presumptions, the court underscored that the presumptions of guilt under Sections 29 and 30 of the POCSO Act cannot be brushed off lightly solely because a victim or other witnesses become hostile. The accused had appealed his conviction on the ground that the prosecution case had collapsed after the recantations. The High Court rejected that contention and upheld the sentence, giving decisive weight to the forensic match and the broader context of coercion and familial pressure.

A separate single bench decision considered juvenile confidentiality and access to records where no right of appeal exists. The court held that a Juvenile Justice Board's refusal to provide a copy of an acquittal order could not be faulted when law does not create an enforceable right to obtain such a certified copy for the purpose of challenge, and noted statutory confidentiality obligations.

The judgments carry implications for prosecutions and child protection policy. For prosecutors and investigators the rulings underline the importance of rapid forensic collection and medical examination early in investigations and of documenting signs of coercion or pressure. For policymakers the decisions highlight the need to strengthen institutional support for child victims including legal aid, witness protection and forensic capacity so that scientific evidence and protective services can offset the corrosive effect of family pressure on testimony. In the longer term courts increasingly signal an evidentiary shift in sexual offences cases toward integrated assessments that pair witness accounts with independent scientific corroboration.