Court acquits man for trafficking girl from Jharkhand

New Delhi: A court here has acquitted a man of the charges of trafficking a girl from Jharkhand in 2014 and forcing her into unlawful compulsory labour, saying the prosecution failed to prove the charges by providing compelling evidence.

Additional Sessions Judge Raj Kumar was hearing a case involving Shyam Kumar against whom the Hazarat Nizamuddin Railway Police station had registered an FIR under Indian Penal Code sections 370 (trafficking), 374 (unlawful compulsory labour), 509 (insulting the modesty of a woman by uttering any word, making any sound or gesture or by exhibiting any object) and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), and section 23 (cruelty to juvenile or a child) of the Juvenile Justice Act.

According to the prosecution, Kumar allegedly trafficked the minor in 2014 from a village in Jharkhand’s Khunti district and used force, fraud and deception to employ her as a domestic help, while withholding her earnings.

The girl, who was rescued from a railway station in August 2014, was allegedly threatened, beaten up and kept in a situation that was detrimental to her physical and mental well-being, the prosecution had said. Taking note of the evidence before it, including the testimonies of the girl, her father and an employer, along with a contract of employment where her age was mentioned as 19 years, the court, in a recent order, held that the victim was not a minor at the time of the purported offence. It said during the proceedings, the victim categorically admitted that she came to Delhi out of her own volition to earn money, worked willingly as a domestic help in the national capital, following which the accused forced her to work at Hisar and Mumbai.

The court noted her statements about not receiving any ill-treatment or beatings at Hisar and that she ran away from Mumbai after a few days. “Going by the testimonies of the victim, that of her father and that of the employers of the victim, I am of the opinion that the prosecution has failed to bring any evidence on record to show that the accused recruited or transported or harboured the victim for exploitation by using threats or coercion, abduction or by practising fraud or deception or abuse of power or by inducement,” the judge said.