The Supreme Court has clarified that failure to establish a victim’s age for the purpose of a POCSO conviction does not necessarily bring the entire prosecution to an end when the evidence independently proves rape.
A bench of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice NV Anjaria held that an accused may be convicted under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) even when no specific charge under that provision was framed, provided the accused had a fair opportunity to defend against the allegations and the essential ingredients of the offences are substantially the same.
The Court was dealing with a case arising from Meghalaya, where a woman had alleged that her 13-year-old daughter was raped in 2019. The accused was initially prosecuted under Sections 3 and 4 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, along with Section 506 of the IPC.
Following investigation, the case went before the Special Court. Charges were framed under Section 506 IPC and Sections 3 and 4 of the POCSO Act. The prosecution examined 14 witnesses and relied on several documents, including a Baptismal Certificate to establish the girl’s age. Her statement had also been recorded under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The trial court convicted the accused under Section 4 of the POCSO Act and awarded 20 years of rigorous imprisonment along with a ₹5,000 fine. A separate two-year sentence was imposed under Section 506 IPC. The Meghalaya High Court later upheld the conviction.
Before the Supreme Court, the accused challenged the finding that the girl was a minor. Reliance was placed on the Court’s earlier ruling in P. Yuvaprakash v. State, arguing that the prosecution had not established her age in the manner prescribed under Section 94 of the Juvenile Justice Act.
The Supreme Court agreed that the prosecution had fallen short of the statutory requirements for proving the victim’s age. But that finding, it said, did not automatically benefit the accused because the evidence establishing the sexual assault stood on a different footing.
The Court noted that the fact of rape had been established through medical evidence and that the finding could not be discarded merely because the prosecution had failed to conclusively establish the victim’s age for the POCSO offence.
In substance, the Court drew a distinction between proving that the victim was a child—a requirement central to a POCSO conviction—and proving the occurrence of rape itself.
The bench further examined the absence of a formal Section 376 IPC charge. It held that this procedural omission was not, by itself, enough to prevent a conviction where no prejudice or failure of justice had resulted.
Referring to Section 464 of the CrPC, the Court reiterated that an appellate or revisional court can sustain or record a conviction for an offence for which a charge was not formally framed, unless the omission has actually caused a failure of justice.
The Court observed that the trial court should, in the circumstances, have framed a Section 376 IPC charge as an alternative to the POCSO charge, particularly because the prosecution’s case itself disclosed the commission of rape.
The bench reasoned that Section 3 of the POCSO Act and Section 376 IPC, in the circumstances of the case, concerned the same underlying act of sexual assault. Since the accused had already been called upon to defend himself against the POCSO allegation, the absence of a separate Section 376 charge did not necessarily cause prejudice.
The Supreme Court therefore held that once the prosecution failed to establish the victim’s minority in the manner required for POCSO, the accused could still face conviction for rape if the ingredients of the IPC offence were otherwise proved and he had received a meaningful opportunity to defend himself.
The ruling underscores that a technical defect in proving the age element of a POCSO offence cannot automatically erase evidence of a sexual assault that has otherwise been established. At the same time, the Court’s reasoning rests on the absence of prejudice to the accused and the requirement that the offence sought to be sustained must be properly supported by the evidence.
