Madras High Court acquits death row convict from POCSO Act charge

The Madras High Court has acquitted a death row convict from the charge of aggravated sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 and modified his capital punishment to life imprisonment only for the charge of murdering a nine-year-old girl child.

Justices Anita Sumanth and Sunder Mohan passed the verdict while partly allowing an appeal preferred by the convict Kakka alias Karunas in the 2024 Puducherry POCSO Act case, in which the second accused Harikrishnan alias Vivekanandan had died by suicide, inside the prison, before commencement of trial.

A special court for POCSO Act cases had, on April 30, 2026, convicted the appellant and sentenced him to death both for the charge under Section 6 of the POCSO Act and Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code. However, the High Court confirmed his conviction only for murder and modified the punishment to life sentence.

The Division Bench arrived at the decision after examination and cross examination of some of the witnesses during the course of hearing of the appeal, along with a reference made by the trial court for confirmation of death sentences imposed by it for the POCSO charge and the murder charge.

The judges had appointed senior counsel N.R. Elango, assisted by A. Nagarajan and B. Arvind Srevatsa, to argue for the appellant apart from the appointment of legal aid counsel S. Sridevi since the convict had told the court he did not have the wherewithal to engage a lawyer on his own.

Authoring the verdict, Justice Mohan pointed out that the entire prosecution case was based upon circumstantial evidence as there was no eye-witness to the crime. Hence, the prosecution had to prove a chain of circumstances, without any break in the link, in order to establish the guilt of the accused.

According to the prosecution, the two accused had subjected the girl child, their neighbour, to aggravated sexual assault at the residence of the second accused before smothering her to death and dumping her body in a canal behind the place of occurrence on March 2, 2024.