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Mumbai: The Bombay High Court’s Nagpur bench acquitted a 35 -year -old man accused of molesting a teenager in 2015, saying “I love you” is just an expression of emotions, not to reveal “sexual desire”. The bench of Justice Urmila Joshi-Phalke, in its order passed on Monday, said that any sexual act includes remarks made with the intention of inappropriate touch, forced clothes, abusive gestures or the intention of hurting the dignity of the woman.
Holded hands and said-I love you
According to the complaint, the accused went to the 17 -year -old girl in Nagpur, grabbed her hand and said “I love you”. In 2017, a session court in Nagpur convicted the accused under the respective sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Child Sexual Crime Protection (Poxo) Act and sentenced him to three years imprisonment.
The High Court, while canceling the person’s conviction, said that no such situation was found to indicate that his real intention was to establish sexual contact with the victim. The High Court said, “Words like” I love you “will not be equal to sexual desire (disclosure) in itself, as is envisaged by the legislature.”
Only I love you to say not enough-court
The High Court said that if there was a sexual purpose behind saying ‘I love you’, then there should be some concrete and additional signs to prove it, not enough to say. According to the prosecution, when the girl was returning home from school, the person held 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 lodged.
The High Court said that the matter does not come under the purview of molestation or sexual harassment. The court order states, “If a person says that he loves someone or expresses his feelings, then it can not be seen as any sexual intention by just saying so much.” (Input-language)
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