NEW DELHI: Bombay excessive court docket’s Nagpur bench, whereas quashing conviction of a person beneath POSCO case, mentioned that saying ‘I like you’ is simply an expression of feeling and doesn’t in itself quantity to “sexual intent.” A bench of justice Urmila Joshi-Phalke acquitted a 35-year-old man accused of molesting a teenage lady in 2015. Whereas listening to the case, the bench in its order mentioned that any sexual act consists of inappropriate touching, forcible disrobing, indecent gestures or remarks made with the intention to insult the modesty of a girl. Earlier, a classes court docket in Nagpur convicted the person beneath Indian Penal Code and the Safety of Kids from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act in 2017. The bench had additionally sentenced him to a few years’ imprisonment.

The person was accused of accosting the 17-year-old lady whereas she was on her approach dwelling from faculty. The criticism talked about that the person held her arms and mentioned, “I like you.” {The teenager} went dwelling and instructed her father, and a FIR was lodged. The HC, whereas quashing the person’s conviction, mentioned that no circumstance indicated that his intention was to determine sexual contact with the lady. “Phrases expressed ‘I like you’ wouldn’t by themselves quantity to sexual intent as contemplated by the legislature,” the court docket mentioned.“There needs to be one thing extra to recommend that the true intention behind saying ‘I like you’ was to pull the angle of intercourse,” the HC added.The case does not fall beneath the purview of molestation or sexual harassment, it additional famous. “If someone says that he’s in love with one other individual or expresses his emotions, that in itself wouldn’t quantity to an intent exhibiting some form of sexual intention,” the order mentioned.