'Saying I love you isn't sexual harassment': Bombay HC draws the line; clears man in Pocso case
NEW DELHI: Bombay high court's Nagpur bench, while quashing conviction of a man under POSCO case, said that saying 'I love you' is only an expression of feeling and does not in itself amount to "sexual intent.
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A bench of justice Urmila Joshi-Phalke acquitted a 35-year-old man accused of molesting a teenage girl in 2015.
While hearing the case, the bench in its order said that any sexual act includes inappropriate touching, forcible disrobing, indecent gestures or remarks made with the intention to insult the modesty of a woman.
Earlier, a sessions court in Nagpur convicted the man under Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act in 2017.
The bench had also sentenced him to three years' imprisonment.
The man was accused of accosting the 17-year-old girl while she was on her way home from school. The complaint mentioned that the man held her hands and said, "I love you."
The teenager went home and told her father, and a FIR was lodged.
The HC, while quashing the man's conviction, said that no circumstance indicated that his intention was to establish sexual contact with the girl.
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"Words expressed 'I love you' would not by themselves amount to sexual intent as contemplated by the legislature," the court said.
"There should be something more to suggest that the real intention behind saying 'I love you' was to drag the angle of sex," the HC added.
The case doesn't fall under the purview of molestation or sexual harassment, it further noted.
"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 said.
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