The Madras High Court has enhanced from ₹1 lakh to ₹5 lakh the compensation to be paid by the State government to a class VII school student who was picked up by an unknown person from a bus stand, lodged in a remote place and subjected to sodomy and oral sex for a week.
Justices P.N. Prakash and R.N. Manjula felt that the compensation of ₹1 lakh awarded by the Mahila Court in Erode was too less. Hence, they directed the government to pay a fair compensation of ₹5 lakh either from the Victim Compensation Fund or any other State fund within 30 days.
The judges also ordered that 25% of the amount should be paid in cash to the father of the victim and the rest should be deposited in a bank until the victim attains majority. The orders were passed while confirming the conviction and life sentence imposed on the accused Kumar alias G. Kumaresan.
According to the prosecution, the boy was waiting in a bus stand on November 17, 2016 when he was picked up by the convict in his motorcycle on the pretext of dropping him at home. The abductor locked the child in a building at a secluded place and subjected him to unnatural sex for a week.
The victim escaped from the place when the abductor was busy on a phone call. After reaching home, he narrated the events to his parents at whose instance the police altered a boy missing case into a case of abduction and also pressed the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act of 2012.
Though the convict’s counsel contended that the victim was suffering from psychiatric issues and therefore his deposition should not be taken into consideration, the judges rejected the argument and held that the victim’s statement inspires the confidence of the court and therefore it could not be rejected.
Authoring the verdict, Justice Manjula wrote: “The doctor, who examined the victim, has noticed bite marks on the right leg of the child and mentioned them in the medical certificate marked as exhibit number 11... The presence of bite marks would show that he was assaulted by the accused whenever he did not cooperate for his sexual desires.”
The judges said the court would have no hestitation in confirming the conviction and life sentence since the oral testimony of the victim was of stellar quality and there was no motive that had been attributed by the victim for the prosecution to have booked a false case against him.
