CHENNAI: Weed out ‘potency test’ in sexual offence cases and stop ‘two-finger’ tests on victims of sexual assault cases, the Madras high court has told Tamil Nadu police.
“Science has improved and it is possible to conduct this test (potency) by just collecting the blood sample,” said a division bench of Justice N Anand Venkatesh and Justice Sunder Mohan, directing the state director-general of police to come out with a standard operating procedure (SOP) in this regard.
Resolving to ensure that both these tests are discontinued, the bench further directed the DGP to identify cases involving consensual relationships from among the 1,274 pending cases (registered between 2010 and 2013) under the Pocso Act.
“If those cases are segregated from the pending cases, it will be easy for this court to deal with them and in appropriate cases, this court can also exercise its jurisdiction and quash the proceedings if the proceedings are ultimately going to be against the interest and future of the children involved in those cases and it is found to be an abuse of process of law,” the bench said.
Earlier, quashing a case registered under the Pocso Act involving minor children who eloped and had consensual sex, the court said, “…It is sad that none of the stakeholders was sensitive to the fact that both the boy and the girl were under 18 years and both of them are categorised as child under the relevant enactment.”
What is even more shocking is that both the girl and boy are ‘child’ in the eye of law and whereas, the girl was treated as a victim and the boy was treated as a child in conflict with law,” the court said.
The bench also directed the DGP to instruct all the inspectors-general to collect data by going through the medical reports prepared in all cases starting from January 1, involving sexual offence and see if any report given makes reference to the two-finger test.
“If any such report is identified, it shall be collected and shall be brought to the notice of this court. On receipt of the same, we will pass further orders,” the judges said.
Likewise, the potency test that is done in cases involving sexual offence, carries a mechanism of collecting sperm from the offender and this is a method of the past. Science has improved metes and bounds and it is possible to conduct this test by just collecting the blood sample. Such advanced techniques are being followed across the world and we should also fall in line, they added.
The bench remarked that instructions given by the Pocso Committee and the circular issued by the DGP have not percolated into the system.