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Exonerating a 23-year-old man from charges of sexual harassment under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, a special court in Mumbai observed that saying “I love you” to a girl once cannot be considered an intentional insult.

POCSO Special Judge Kalpana Patil in the Court of Sessions for Greater Bombay stated,

“Single incident of saying I love you to the victim will at the most amount expressing the feeling of love of accused towards the victim. This act cannot be said to be done with an intention to insult the modesty of the victim. Prosecution has not brought on record and overt act of accused which will amount to insult the modesty of victim.”

According to the complaint filed by the 17-year-old victim girl’s family, the accused was their neighbor. One day, when the girl was going to use a public bathroom situated near their house, the accused came behind the girl and started telling her that he loved her.

Upon this, the girl told the accused that she will tell this fact to her mother, to which he said she can do so. After that, the girl returned to her home and narrated the incident to her mother. Following this, when the mother asked the accused about the incident, he did not respond and gave evasive answers. Further, allegedly, the accused used to stare and wink at the girl earlier also.

Subsequently, a case was registered against the accused under section 12 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and under sections 509, 506 of the Indian Penal Code.

However, the Court found that the prosecution’s case lacked evidence to prove the crime. Court noted that though allegations of earlier staring and winking were made by the girl and her mother at a later stage, no details as to the day, date, and place of the act of staring were given by the girl in her oral evidence.

Court also pointed out that in her oral evidence, the girl had not mentioned the act of winking by the accused at all. Contradictions were also found in girl and her mother's evidence regarding the spot of the alleged incident.

Therefore, noting that as per victim girl's statement, on the day of the incident, accused had said 'I love you' to her, court inferred that it was not girl's case that the accused had repeatedly followed her and said "I love you'.

Accordingly, court held that this single incident of saying I love you could not be considered as an act done with an intention to insult the modesty of the victim.

Furthermore, stressing that the prosecution had not brought on record any evidence establishing that accused had committed any act towards the girl with sexual intent, court concluded that the prosecution evidence fell short to attract the ingredients of the alleged offences and therefore, acquitted the accused.

Case Title: The State of Maharashtra v. Prakash Ramsumer Jaiswal