Sentencing a temple priest/oracle to life imprisonment for raping a girl, a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Thursday wondered which God would accept the obeisance and offerings of such a priest or make him a medium.
The Bench comprising Justice K. Vinod Chandran and Justice Ziyad Rahman, while partly allowing an appeal by Madhu, an oracle, against the Manjeri Special Court for the cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, observed that “in this case we have a pujari/komaram (priest/oracle in a temple) taking the abandoned woman and the three children under his wing, only to repeatedly molest the elder girl child, that too in the presence of her siblings. We wonder which God would accept the obeisance and offerings of such a priest or make him a medium?"
The court, however, acquitted the accused of charges under the POCSO Act on the ground that the age of the victim had not been proved. The court noted that as she was kept away from the school, she did not have the age proof. However, the evidence had established that the victim was subjected to repeated rape by the accused. So, he was convicted with life imprisonment under Section 376 (1) of the Indian Penal Code.
