Judging A Decade Of POCSO

Protecting our children will require greater cross-state learning and improving judicial capacities

- Apoorva, Aditya Ranjan, Sandeep Bhupatiraju, Shareen Joshi and Daniel L Chen

On November 14, 2022, the POCSO Act completed a decade of being on the statute books in India. When enacted, it marked the culmination of years of campaigning for a dedicated domestic legislation to deal with sexual offences against children. Ten years is a reasonable period of time to look back and reflect on how far it has been able to meet the objectives it set out to achieve.

Objectives of the law The need for a dedicated law to deal with sexual offences against children emanated from a realisation that, by failing to account for the specific needs of child victims, the criminal justice system’s response to such cases lacked the sensitivity required.

● To address this concern, the POCSO Act, in addition to providing punishment for sexual offences against children, provided certain safeguards to make children’s interaction with the criminal justice system ‘child-friendly’.

● For instance, the Act specifically laid down that the child victim should not see the accused at the time of testifying and that the trial be held in camera.

● Further, it specifically provided that the evidence of a child shall be recorded within a period of 30 days of the Special Court taking cognisance of the offence and reasons for delay, if any, be recorded.