Abstract

Statement of Problem: The POCSO Act, which was enacted to protect children from sexual abuse and decrease the sexual abuse cases, doesn't seem to be implemented properly. The POCSO Act has provisions that try to secure the identity of the victims and also to give immediate healthcare and protection but it fails in protecting the victims and their families from any type of life threat. The POCSO Act also does not have any provisions relating to the security and protection of witnesses, which according to Jeremy Bentham (a great English Philosopher, Jurist Social Reformer) are the "eyes and ears of Justice” . According to the NCRB (National Crime Record Bureau) report 2020, the total number of persons arrested in 2020 was 59002 out of which the total chargesheet filed was 557635 . However, the total cases sent for trial in 2020 were 44709 and if aggregated with previous year cases where trial is still going on being 179893 out of which conviction rate is just 39.6% or 3686 and acquittal rate being 55% or 5133 which is much higher than conviction rate.
Hypothesis: As the report shows there is a low conviction rate in POCSO cases. It can be possible that the accused, by using power and money destroy the evidence, buy the witnesses, or create life threat fear to the witnesses. Many cases do not reach the courts possibly due to many people end up doing compromise possible reason could be the accused being someone close. Hence, they might compromise and avoid going to court. If we go by this hypothesis, it would not be wrong to say that the basic aim of the POCSO Act, which was to protect children from sexual abuse is failing in achieving it objective.

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