Woman gets 10-year RI for sexual assault on 4-yr-old in 2016

NEW DELHI: A

Delhi court

recently sentenced a woman to 10 years of

rigorous imprisonment

for committing

penetrative sexual assault

on a four-year-old minor girl in 2016.
Convicting the woman of committing penetrative

sexual assault

with the minor survivor by applying her mouth on the vaginal area, the court of additional sessions judge Kumar Rajat said that the act caused “immense mental trauma to the victim and her parents.”
The court sentenced her to “rigorous imprisonment for 10 years and a fine of Rs 16,000.”
The court was hearing the case against one Shashi, who was convicted of offences under Section 6 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault) of the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and Section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Taking note of the nature of the offence and the mitigating circumstances such as the convict belonging to a poor socio-economic background, being the sole breadearner of the family and having no property, the court said that the convict would only be sentenced under Section 6 of the POCSO Act as it was “higher in degree” to the IPC offence.
The court stated that there was no definite formula for imposing a sentence and that it was contingent upon the facts and circumstances in each case, the nature of the crime, how it was planned and committed, its motive, the conduct of the convict and all other attending circumstances. “The object and basic purpose of sentencing is that the offender should not go unpunished and justice be done to victim of crime and the society,” it added.