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News Topical, Digital Desk : Bombay High Court Verdict: The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court acquitted a 35-year-old accused of molesting a minor in 2015. The allegation was that the man had said 'I love you' to a minor on the road. The High Court remarked that saying 'I love you' is only an expression of emotions and not an expression of 'sexual desire'.
In its order on Monday (June 30), a bench of Justice Urmila Joshi-Phalke said that any indecency includes inappropriate touching, forceful removal of clothes, indecent gestures or remarks intended to insult the dignity of a woman.
According to the complaint, in 2015, the accused went to a 17-year-old girl in Nagpur. He held her hand and said 'I love you' to her. In 2017, a sessions court in Nagpur convicted the accused under the POCSO Act and sentenced him to three years of imprisonment.
While finding the man not guilty, the High Court said that no circumstances were found to indicate that his actual intention was to sexually assault the victim.
'I love you' does not prove the intention of sexual abuse.
The High Court said, "Words like 'I love you' are not equivalent to expressing sexual desire in themselves. If there was a sexual intention behind saying 'I love you', then there should be some concrete and additional indications to prove it, just saying this is not enough."
The girl ran away after hearing 'I love you'.
The victim's lawyer told the court that when the girl was returning home from school, the accused caught her hand, asked her name and said 'I love you'. The girl managed to escape from there and went home and told her father about the incident, after which an FIR was registered.
'I love you' is just a way of expressing feelings.
The High Court said that this case does not fall under the purview of molestation or sexual harassment. If a person says that he loves someone or expresses his feelings, then just by saying this, it cannot be seen as any kind of sexual intention.
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