The Bombay High Court`s Nagpur bench has acquitted a 35-year-old man accused of molesting a teenage girl in 2015, ruling that merely saying “I love you” is an expression of feelings and does not, in itself, amount to “sexual intent”.
Justice Urmila Joshi-Phalke, presiding over the bench, stated in the order passed on Monday that any sexual act typically includes inappropriate touching, forcible disrobing, or indecent gestures or remarks made with an intent to insult the modesty of a woman, reported PTI.
According to the initial complaint, the man had accosted the 17-year-old victim in Nagpur, held her hand, and then said “I love you.”
A sessions court in Nagpur had previously convicted him in 2017 under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, sentencing him to three years` imprisonment.
However, the High Court has now quashed the man`s conviction, noting that there was no surrounding circumstance to indicate his true intention was to establish sexual contact with the victim. The court asserted that “Words expressed `I love you` would not by itself amount to sexual intent as contemplated by the legislature.”
According to PTI, the High Court further added that there would need to be “something more to suggest that the real intention behind saying `I love you` was to drag the angle of sex.”
The prosecution`s case had been that the man accosted the girl as she was returning home from school, held her hand, asked her name, and then said “I love you.”
Following the move the girl immediately managed to leave the space, went home, and informed her father, leading to the lodging of a First Information Report (FIR) against the man.
Meanwhile the High Court concluded that the specific details of this case do not fall under the purview of molestation or sexual harassment, as defined. “If somebody says that he is in love with another person or expresses his feelings, that in itself would not amount to an intent showing some sort of sexual intention,” the order stated, reported PTI.
In the present case, the court found no evidence to reveal that the accused had said “I love you” with a sexual intent.
(With inputs from PTI)
