Direct Information From Child Victim Amounts To "Knowledge" U/S 19 POCSO Act; Persons Receiving It Can’t Conduct Own Verification Before Reporting: Supreme Court

The Court partly allowed an appeal filed by the minor victim’s mother and set aside the discharge of a school headmistress from prosecution under Section 21 of the POCSO Act and Section 176 of the IPC, while refusing to interfere with the discharge of other school staff members.

A Bench of Justice Manoj Misra and Justice K.V. Viswanathan observed: “… the phrase ‘has knowledge that such an offence has been committed’ is not limited to direct knowledge of the commission of the offence, but would include awareness of its commission based on direct information received from the victim, in our view, the person who received information about its commission from the victim could be said to have knowledge that such an offence has been committed”.

The Bench added: “ ... an investigation to ascertain whether such an incident has actually occurred or not must take place after reporting of the incident and not before, as such an exercise would defeat the very purpose for which the POCSO Act has been enacted, ... Otherwise also, if investigative exercise is carried out by a person before reporting the incident, the signs of such an offence may disappear, resulting in the accused going scot-free".

"Prompt reporting of the incident is a sine qua non for effective implementation of the Act,” the Bench further remarked. 

Senior Advocate Jitendra Mohan Sharma appeared for the appellant, while Advocate Satya Kam Sharma and Advocate Jaikriti S. Jadeja appeared for the respondents.

Background

The appeal was filed by the mother of a minor victim against an order of the Gauhati High Court at Itanagar, which had affirmed the Trial Court’s order discharging school authorities and staff members from prosecution. The police report had alleged that the main offender was a juvenile in conflict with the law, while the school staff were charged for failure to report the incident, causing the disappearance of evidence, conspiracy and omission to furnish information.

The Trial Court discharged the school officials, holding that there was no prima facie case or scope of trial against them. It reasoned that the school officials had attempted to verify the matter, found no visible basis to conclude that the incident had occurred, and therefore were not duty-bound to report it to the police or the parents.

The High Court dismissed the revision filed by the victim’s mother, holding that “knowledge” or “reason to believe” could not be attributed to the discharged accused and that the material may be sufficient to put the juvenile offender to trial, but not the rest of the respondents.

Court’s Observations

The Supreme Court first reiterated the settled principles governing discharge. It held that at the stage of considering discharge in a case instituted on a police report, the Court must only consider the material collected during the investigation and forming part of the police report. The Court added that the defence of the accused, based on material not forming part of the police report, is not to be considered at that stage.

Referring to State of Tamil Nadu v. N. Suresh Rajan (2014), the Court observed: “True it is that at the time of consideration of the application for discharge, the court cannot act as a mouthpiece of the prosecution or act as a post office and may sift evidence in order to find out whether or not the allegations made are groundless so as to pass an order of discharge. It is trite that at this stage of consideration of an application for discharge, the court has to proceed with an assumption that the materials brought on record by the prosecution are true and evaluate the said materials and documents with a view to find out whether the facts emerging therefrom taken at their face value disclose the existence of all ingredients constituting the alleged offense. At this stage, probative value of the materials has to be gone into and the court is not expected to go deep into the matter and hold the materials would not warrant a conviction.”

The Bench noted that the test was whether the material forming part of the police report, taken at face value, had sufficient probative value to create a grave suspicion that the accused had committed the alleged offence. It added that the Court may sift and weigh the evidence to that limited extent, but need not be satisfied that the material is sufficient to record a conviction.

The Court then examined Sections 19 and 21 of the POCSO Act. It noted that Section 19 mandates reporting by any person who has knowledge that an offence under the Act has been committed, while Section 21 prescribes punishment for failure to report or record such an offence. The Court also noted that Section 19(7) protects a person who reports in good faith from civil or criminal liability.

The central question before the Court was the meaning of the phrase “has knowledge that such an offence has been committed” under Section 19(1) of the POCSO Act. The Court considered A.S. Krishnan v. State of Kerala (2004), SR. Tessy Jose v. State of Kerala (2018), State of Maharashtra v. Dr Maroti (2023) and Just Rights for Children Alliance v. S. Harish (2024), while interpreting the expression “knowledge” in the context of the statute.

The Bench observed that the word “knowledge” is not defined in the POCSO Act, the IPC, the CrPC, the Juvenile Justice Act, the Information Technology Act or the General Clauses Act. It therefore held that a contextual meaning that best serves the purpose of the POCSO Act must be adopted.

The Court further considered the statutory object of the POCSO Act and noted that the legislation was enacted to protect children from sexual offences, safeguard the interest and well-being of the child at every stage of the judicial process, and provide child-friendly procedures for reporting, investigation and trial.

On the mandatory reporting scheme, the Bench held: “ … in our view, if we construe the expression “knowledge”, as used in sub-section (1), as something which a person knows on the basis of his own senses, and exclude knowledge based on receipt of credible information, the purpose of the POCSO Act would stand defeated. This we say so because the purpose of the Act is not only to punish the offender but also to protect a child from sexual offences. Besides, it is a matter of common understanding that sexual offences are rarely committed in public gaze. These offences usually occur in the confines of secrecy. Therefore, for the purposes of this Act, when a child victim reports to a person that he or she has been subjected to an offence, or is likely to be subjected to an offence, punishable under the Act, it could safely be concluded that the person to whom such information is provided by the child victim has knowledge that such an offence has been committed or is likely to be committed.”

The Bench clarified that in cases where a child is unable to clearly communicate the nature of the act, limited questioning may be permissible only to understand the nature of the complaint, and not to discard or disbelieve it.

It observed: “There may be instances where a child may report without understanding the nature of the act to which the child has been subjected to. In such cases, and also where the information provided by the child is either not clear or confusing, a brief questioning of the child may be justified to derive a lucid picture of the nature of the information which the child wishes to convey. However, such questioning should not be with a view to rubbish the complaint made by the child, rather it must be to understand the true and correct nature of the complaint.”

The Court then crystallised the legal position under Section 19(1) of the POCSO Act.

It held: “In light of the discussion above, in our considered view, to serve the avowed purpose of the POCSO Act, the phrase “has knowledge that such an offence has been committed”, as used in sub-section (1) of Section 19, would have to be construed as to include awareness based on the receipt of credible information with regard to commission of an offence punishable under the Act. And where such information is received directly from the victim, who is capable of communicating/ reporting/ informing, it will be deemed credible.”

Applying the law to the facts, the Court noted that the material collected during the investigation indicated that the child had given direct information about the incident to four persons, three of whom were minors and one of whom was the school headmistress. The Court noted that the minors were protected from prosecution by Section 21(3) of the POCSO Act.

As regards the school headmistress, the Court held that the material in the police report showed that she had received information from the victim but, instead of reporting the matter under Section 19(1), undertook her own verification exercise and decided not to report the incident.

The Bench rejected the defence that the absence of signs after internal verification or later medical examination could justify non-reporting. It held that such verification cannot precede reporting under the POCSO Act.

The Court observed: “Section 27 reads thus: “27. Medical examination of a child.—(1) The medical examination of a child in respect of whom any offence has been committed under this Act, shall, notwithstanding that a First Information Report or complaint has not been registered for the offences under this Act, be conducted in accordance with section 164A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1973). (2) In case the victim is a girl child, the medical examination shall be conducted by a woman doctor. (3) The medical examination shall be conducted in the presence of the parent of the child or any other person in whom the child reposes trust or confidence. (4) Where, in case the parent of the child or other person referred to in sub-section (3) cannot be present, for any reason, during the medical examination of the child, the medical examination shall be conducted in the presence of a woman nominated by the head of the medical institution.”

The Bench added: “What is significant in Section 27 is that a medical examination of the child in respect of whom any offence has been committed under this Act is required notwithstanding that the first information report or complaint is not registered for the offences under the POCSO Act. This would imply that the information regarding commission of an offence punishable under the Act has to be provided at the earliest so that necessary steps could be taken for medical examination, and for protective measures, if required.”

The Court held that the Trial Court and High Court erred in holding that, because no signs were noticed, there was no reason to believe that such an offence had been committed and therefore no legal obligation to report.

However, the Court also clarified that not all teachers or office bearers of the institution were liable to be prosecuted merely because they were allegedly present when internal verification took place or later participated in discussions.

It observed: “However, not all teachers or office bearers of the institution need to be prosecuted for the offence punishable under Section 21 of the Act. Only those who received information directly from the victim, of her being subjected to sexual assault, could be prosecuted for failure to report. Others, who are not the ones before whom offence was committed or to whom complaint was made, are not liable to be prosecuted merely because of their alleged presence in the room where verification was carried out. This we say so, because in absence of a direct complaint to them, and there being no signs of sexual assault according to their understanding as also the medical report, they cannot be considered liable for not reporting.”

The Court held that the allegations against the headmistress were sufficient to create grave suspicion for framing a charge under Section 21 of the POCSO Act and Section 176 of the IPC.

As to the other teachers and office bearers, the Court found that they had not received information directly from the victim, and that there was no worthwhile material showing conspiracy or causing the disappearance of evidence.

The Bench observed: “Besides, there is no worthwhile material on record to indicate a conspiracy to suppress the information. The material only indicates that after considering all materials including CCTV footage, a decision was taken not to report. Such a decision may be incorrect, but, prima facie, it was on the own understanding of the situation; therefore, those who had no direct knowledge of the incident and had not received information about it directly from the victim, cannot be considered part of the criminal conspiracy. At this stage, we may also notice that making false accusation against a child is also an offence punishable under sub-section (3) of Section 22 of the POCSO Act. Notably, JCWL is a child. Therefore, in absence of direct information from the victim, if they had erred in favour of caution, it would be travesty of justice to prosecute them for criminal conspiracy to suppress information of the commission of an offence under the POCSO Act.”

Conclusion

The Supreme Court partly allowed the appeal.

The Court set aside the judgments of the High Court and Trial Court to the extent they discharged Linda Sema from prosecution under Section 21 read with Section 19(1) of the POCSO Act and Section 176 of the IPC. It directed the Trial Court to proceed against her in accordance with the law for those offences.

The Court clarified that its observations would not be treated as an opinion on the merits of the allegations and that the Trial Court must decide the case strictly in accordance with the law.

Cause Title: AAA v. Linda Sema & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2026 INSC 675)

Appearances

Appellant: Senior Advocate Jitendra Mohan Sharma with AOR Rajiv Mangla and Advocates Monika, Hrithik Jarodia, Amrit Pradhan and Akshat Sharma.

Respondents: AOR Satya Kam Sharma with Advocates Varun Singh and Anshuman Singh; AOR Jaikriti S. Jadeja.

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