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Deepak In JC v. State Govt. of NCT Delhi

Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 1008Decided 17 Sept 2026
Criminal Appeal Nos. 4414-4415 of 2026 (arising out of SLP(Crl.) Nos. 21271-21272 of 2025)
Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra · Justice N.V. Anjaria

Background

In 2015, a 2.5-year-old child was taken by a neighbour (the appellant) to a park in Delhi; her mother later found blood on the child's clothing and alleged the child said the appellant had sexually assaulted her. An FIR was registered, and the trial court convicted the appellant of kidnapping (Section 363 IPC) and aggravated penetrative sexual assault (Section 6, POCSO Act), sentencing him to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment, relying mainly on the mother's testimony and a private doctor's account of seeing blood on the child's clothes. The High Court of Delhi affirmed this conviction, invoking the POCSO Act's statutory presumption of guilt against the accused once foundational facts are shown.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court acquitted the appellant, finding the prosecution's own evidence deeply contradictory and unreliable: the mother and the private doctor gave conflicting accounts of when and with whom the child was brought for examination; crucially, the government hospital doctor who actually examined the child found no injury and an intact hymen, and the forensic lab found no semen, no male DNA, and (directly contradicting the "blood on clothing" story) no blood on the child's pyjama at all. The Court held that while POCSO's Sections 29 and 30 create a presumption of guilt once the prosecution proves foundational facts, this presumption is rebuttable and does not dilute the fundamental rule that guilt must still be proved beyond reasonable doubt; courts must not mechanically apply the presumption to override contradictory medical and forensic evidence. The Court also accepted a plausible defence theory that the complaint stemmed from a pre-existing dispute between the families over a shared water connection.

Lesson Learnt

The POCSO Act's presumption of guilt shifts the burden onto the accused to explain the evidence, but it does not mean courts can convict on a shaky, self-contradictory prosecution story. If the medical and forensic evidence directly contradicts the oral testimony, the presumption cannot rescue a case that fails to meet the "beyond reasonable doubt" standard.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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