Kota (Rajasthan), Jun 21 (PTI) A 49-year-old man and his woman partner were on Saturday sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for sexually exploiting a minor by a POCSO court in Rajasthan's Jhalawar district.

According to a public prosecutor, the police had in November 2022 given a clean chit to the two accused in the case registered in March 2021, but after the survivor filed a protest petition, the court ordered the resumption of proceedings against the duo.

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The POCSO Court-2 in Jhalawar sentenced the man and his 38-year-old partner, both residents of the same district, to 20 years in jail and fined them Rs 20,000 each, public prosecutor Deepesh Bhargav told reporters.

The minor survivor's father filed a complaint on March 17, 2021, alleging that the two abducted her on March 12 and the accused man had sexually exploited her, he said.

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On the direction of the then Superintendent of Police, the police registered a case against the duo under various sections of IPC and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act in Kamkheda police station in the district and began an investigation.

However, the police cleared the two accused and submitted a final report to the court on November 23, 2022.

The survivor, on the same day, filed a protest petition against the final report following which the court ordered the resumption of proceedings, Bhargav said.

The convicts had been in jail since their arrest in November 2022, he said.

Statements of eight witnesses were recorded during the trial, he added.

(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)