In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court of India has clarified that the presumption of guilt under Section 29 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, applies only after the prosecution proves the basic facts of a sexual assault. It cannot be used if the child victim’s statement itself is not fully reliable.

Supreme Court Restores Acquittal:

Justices Sanjay Kumar and K Vinod Chandran set aside a decision of the Calcutta High Court, which had reversed an acquittal. The Supreme Court restored the trial court’s acquittal order dated March 13, 2019, in a case against a tuition teacher accused under Section 8 of the POCSO Act.

The Court clearly stated:

“Unless the testimony of a victim child is found to be fully credible and trustworthy, the question of applying the presumption on the strength of such statement alone would not arise.

The foundational fact of a sexual assault that would attract the presumption under Section 29 of the POCSO Act would require more than PW-1’s statement which, on the face of it, was not credible as what she had stated to her mother was not borne out by her own statement before the trial court”.

Allegations:

The case was based on allegations that on July 17, 2017, at about 9:25 pm, a tuition teacher inappropriately touched his 14-year-old student after sending other students away. The girl told her mother the same night, and a formal complaint was filed the next evening.

The prosecution examined ten witnesses, including the child (PW-1). During cross-examination, the child said her parents were sitting on the verandah and the teacher’s wife was in the kitchen at the time of the incident. She also said her mother refused a medical examination.

PW-2 (the mother) confirmed that the child told her about the incident the same night. However, she admitted there was a delay in filing the complaint and gave no clear explanation for refusing medical examination. She described the assault as the teacher brushing his leg against the child and pressing her breast. However, these details were completely missing from the child’s own testimony in court, which was given eight months later. This created a big contradiction and raised doubts about the child’s reliability.

More doubt arose when another witness—whose statement was not challenged in cross-examination—said that she had gone to drop her son for tuition that day and returned along with the victim’s mother. This suggested that the mother may not have been alone at the time of the alleged incident.

Trial Court View:

The trial court acquitted the accused because:

• there was an unexplained one-day delay in filing the complaint (especially significant since the child’s father was a police officer),
   

• there was no medical evidence,
   

• and the prosecution failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.
   

The High Court later reversed this acquittal by relying on the presumption under Section 29 of the POCSO Act.

Supreme Court Finds Error:

However, the Supreme Court held that the High Court made an error. It explained that while the High Court was right that the burden shifts to the accused after basic facts are proved, it did not first check whether those basic facts were actually proved.

Final Outcome:

Since the child’s testimony was not reliable, the basic facts of sexual assault were not proven. The Court also noted that the unexplained delay and the refusal to have a medical examination had a negative impact on the case.

Because of this, the presumption under Section 29 could not be applied. Therefore, the Supreme Court held that the High Court was wrong in reversing the acquittal, and it restored the trial court’s decision.

Case Details: Debraj Dutta v. State of West Bengal & Anr. – SLP(Crl.) No. 16838 of 2025