Tanvi Pilane
Published on: March 22, 2022 at 13:06 IST
A Bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and JK Maheshwari of the Supreme Court on Monday delivered a Split Ruling on the issue of whether a person who publishes the identity of a child victim who suffered sexual abuse could be prosecuted in absence of the Magistrate’s order.
Justice Banerjee stated in her order that the child’s right to dignity and their right to not be embarrassed would be fundamentally breached if their identity is disclosed.
Further, Justice Banerjee said that a child’s right to dignity not only requires that the child be protected from sexual assault offense, pornography, sexual harassment but also requires that the child’s dignity be safeguarded.
Justice Maheshwari on the other hand stated that the said order taking cognizance and rejecting discharge application is not in accordance with the law. He also added that in the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POSCO) offense u.s 23, the procedure u.s 155(2) has to be followed as the offence is non-cognizable and the special court is required to look into the procedure that has to be followed for the investigation.
The Appeal in the present case was filed by Gangadhar Narayan Nayak, the editor of the newspaper Karavali Munjavu, challenging a 2021 Karnataka High Court verdict that dismissed his petition seeking discharge for the offence of disclosing the identity of a minor victim.
The Matter will now be placed before the Chief Justice of India, N.V Ramana for constituting a larger Bench to decide the issue.
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