New Delhi, Jun 24 (PTI) The purpose of the criminal justice system is not only to punish the offender but also to rehabilitate the victim, a court here said while sentencing a man to rigorous imprisonment of 20 years for repeated sodomy of a minor in December 2020.

It also awarded Rs 20 lakh compensation to the victim boy, who the court said was scarred physically and mentally forever.

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Additional Sessions Judge Preeti Parewa was hearing the case against the 38-year-old man who was convicted last month under Section 6 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, besides Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections for unnatural offences, criminal intimidation and voluntarily causing hurt.

The man was also convicted under Section 66 E (punishment for violation of privacy) under the Information and Technology (IT) Act.

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In an order passed recently, the court said, "The purpose of the criminal justice system is not only to attain catharsis by handing down proportional punishment to the offender but also to rehabilitate the victim, who is scarred physically and mentally, forever."

"If we fail to do so, we are also abdicating our duties towards the victim, whose psychological well-being has been dented…," it added.

Noting the facts of the case, the court said that the convict committed "carnal intercourse against the order of nature" more than once with the victim, besides forcibly recording video clips of the minor's private parts and threatening to make them viral.

The court sentenced the convict to 20 years rigorous imprisonment under Section 6 of the POCSO Act, saying it had considered the "entire facts and circumstances of the case, particularly the tender age of the victim boy, the heinous nature of the crime, the physical and mental trauma caused to the victim and the socio-economic background and clean antecedents of the convict."

According to the defence counsel, the convict was a daily wage worker with a monthly income of Rs 7,000 and his family comprised elderly parents, wife and three minor children.

The court also sentenced the convict to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment (RI) for committing unnatural offences, two years of RI under the IT Act, one year of RI each for committing sexual harassment and causing hurt and one-year simple imprisonment for criminal intimidation.

The sentences will run concurrently, the bench said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)