Justice Pushpa Ganediwala, Additional Judge of High Court of Bombay recently had passed three controversial acquittals under the POCSO Act. These Judgments were subjected to an unscarred amount of criticism.
Consequently, Supreme Court collegium withdrew its consent to make Justice Pushpa V Gandediwala; a permanent Judge at Bombay High Court.
It is pertinent to note that, this Collegium was headed by SA Bobde. This Collegium had J. NV Ramana and Rohintron Fali Nariman as well.
On January 20, the collegium recommended the Central Government to make J. Pushpa, a permanent Judge at Bombay High Court.
It is pertinent to to note that J. DY Chandrachud and J. Khanwilkar had their reservations to the Collegium recommendations.
There were three controversial Judgments, passed by her recently:
Jageshwar Wasudeo Kawle v. State of Maharashtra (14th Jan)
In this case, she reversed a conviction order. The matter was pertaining to an offence of rape.
Libnus v. State of Maharashtra (15th Jan)
In this case, she pronounced that, if a man holds a hand of a child with his zip open, then it won’t amount to sexual assault under POCSO Act. In this case, the child deposed that, the accused had his genitals exposed during such act.
Satish Ragde v. State of Maharashtra (19th Jan)
In this case, an accused was convicted for ‘Sexual Assault’ under POCSO. He was alleged to have pressed a 12 years old child breast with an alleged intent of sexually assaulting her. He was acquitted from that offence, citing that, there was a cloth in between.
Interestingly, it was a day after the third POCSO ruling that the Collegium recommended that she be made permanent judge though news about the ruling had not come in the public domain then.
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