'Physical Relations' Cannot Automatically Mean Sexual Assault: Delhi High Court

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has acquitted a man in a POCSO case, saying the use of phrase 'physical relations' by the minor survivor cannot automatically mean sexual assault.

A bench of Justices Prathiba M Singh and Amit Sharma allowed the appeal by the accused, who was awarded imprisonment for the remainder of his life, and observed that it was unclear how the trial court concluded that there was any sexual assault when the survivor had voluntarily gone with the accused.

The court asserted that the leap from physical relations or 'samband' to sexual assault and then to penetrative sexual assault must be established by evidence and cannot be deduced as an inference.