Three-Year-Old Child’s Incoherent & Illogical Statement Does Not Mean It Is Incorrect: Delhi High Court Sets Aside Bail Granted To POCSO Accused School Caretaker
The Court asked why a three-year-old would identify accused as offender and independently point out exact place of occurrence; absence of injuries in medical report cannot outweigh child's consistent disclosure to mother and identification of accused.
The Delhi High Court has set aside a bail order granted to a school caretaker accused of committing aggravated penetrative sexual assault on a three-year-old nursery school student, holding that a child of such tender age cannot be equated with an adult victim capable of narrating events in proper sequence with accuracy of time, and that a child's account, even if it appears incoherent, cannot for that reason alone be treated as incorrect.
Pertinently, the date of incident, that is April 30, 2026, was the second day of school for the three-year old girl, in Nursery.
The Court held that the Trial Court had missed the crux of the matter, namely, why a three-year-old child would not only make such a disclosure to her mother but would also independently identify the accused at the police station and subsequently point out the precise place inside the school basement where the incident occurred.
Justice Vinod Kumar while allowing petitions filed by the State and the victim's mother to cancel the regular bail granted to the respondent by the Additional Sessions Judge (POCSO Court), Dwarka, observed, “…Learned Additional Sessions Judge missed a very important fact that the victim is barely three years old and such a small child cannot be equated with an adult victim, who can narrate the facts in proper sequence with accuracy of time. A child of such tender age may appear to be incoherent and sometimes even illogical but that does not mean that what a child is saying is incorrect. This is a case where about three years old victim narrated the incident to her mother without naming the respondent. Thereafter, she not only identified the respondent but also identified the place where incident took place…”.
“The impugned order has missed the crux of the issue and the issue is as to why a minor child of three years of age would make such a complaint and would not only identify the respondent as the offender but also point out the place of occurrence”, the Bench further observed.
S.V. Raju, Additional Solicitor General appeared for the petitioner and Senior Advocate Sanjeev Sagar appeared for the respondent.
In the matter, in an incident on April 30, 2026, a three-year-old victim, attending school for only the second time, returned home and began crying, complaining of severe pain and pointing to her private part.
She told her mother that a "bada sa ladka" had taken her downstairs at school and touched her, causing pain and bleeding. The mother called the police emergency helpline the same night, and an FIR was registered under Section 64(1) BNS and Section 6 of the POCSO Act.
The following day, the child identified the respondent, a caretaker who had served the school for over three decades and was one of only two male staff members in the Junior Wing of ten total staff, as the offender.
Days later, she also identified her class teacher as the woman who had cleaned blood stains at the scene. CCTV footage showed the respondent entering the school passage at 8:13 AM and exiting at 8:37 AM on the day of the incident; 64 of the school's CCTV cameras were found non-functional.
The Trial Court had granted bail primarily relying on the CCTV timeline showing the respondent's exit and the absence of injuries in the medical examination report.
The Court rejected it, holding that the medical report's reference to 3:00 PM was merely the time the child informed her mother and not the time of the incident, and that the absence of injury or forensic confirmation on the tissue paper sample did not strike off the consistency and reliability of the child's disclosure and identification.
“…I am of the opinion that this is not a correct reading of this portion of medical report. This appears to be the time of informing the incident by the child to her mother. Further, it is argued on behalf of the respondent that as per prosecution, the incident took place in presence of a lady teacher, who is co-accused in the present case. It is argued that such indecent act cannot be done in presence of a lady. I have already stated that a three years old child may not speak about the incident in sequence. As the matter is still under investigation, the Investigating Officer will investigate these facts but it was too early in a day to release the respondent on bail on these points ignoring the version of the victim”.
Placing reliance on the Supreme Court's decision in X v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Another 2026 SCC OnLine SC 43, the Court held that bail orders in POCSO cases must account for the statutory rigour of the Act and the vulnerability of the victim, and that the Trial Court had failed to do so.
The respondent was directed to surrender before the jurisdictional POCSO Court on July 01, 2026.
Cause Title: State v. Lalit Kumar (Neutral Citation: 2026:DHC:5174)
Appearances:
Petitioner: S.V. Raju, Additional Solicitor General, and Aman Usman, APP.
Respondent: Sanjeev Sagar, Sr. Advocate with Sanjeet Kumar, Advocate.