Kerala psychologist gets 7 years in jail for sexually assaulting 13-year-old boy

Thiruvananthapuram: A 59-year-old clinical psychologist in Kerala has been sentenced to seven years of prison and issued a fine of Rs 1.40 lakh by a special Fast Track court in Thiruvananthapuram for sexually harassing a minor boy during his psychiatric treatment.  

The POCSO court sentenced him to 26 years in prison as Special Judge Aaj Sudarshan sentenced him under various sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and he would serve the maximum punishment for a single offence, has to face it concurrently for seven years.

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He was sentenced under sections 9(c) (sexual assault by a public servant on a child), 9(k) (sexual assault after taking advantage of a child’s mental or physical disability) and 9(t) (sexual assault by a person who has been previously convicted for another office under the same law), and five years under Section 9(i) (repeated sexual assault on a child) of the POCCSO Act. 

The court directed him to pay a fine of Rs 1.5 lakh to the victim as compensation, failing which another four years of imprisonment would be added.  

Last year, the psychologist, an assistant professor in the Health department, was sentenced to six years of imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1 lakh for sexually assaulting another minor patient in his private clinic in 2017, in which he had gotten bail. 

The minor, a 13-year-old boy, was sexually harassed between December 6, 2015 and February 21, 2017, by the psychologist after the former approached him for counselling. The harassment affected the mental health of the boy. The doctor also threatened the boy from revealing this to anyone and told him to seek treatment from somewhere else, as per a media report in the Hindu. The boy said that the doctor used to show him obscene videos during consultations. 

The boy recounted the incident while he was admitted to the Psychiatry department of the Government Medical College Hospital in Trivandrum two years later, where he was undergoing treatment for his mental health. His parents had decided to take him to a separate hospital after seeing no improvement in his health condition. 

The hospital authorities subsequently informed the police, following which the Fort police registered a case against the doctor. The case was investigated by Kiran T.R. and A. Anish, the then sub-inspectors in the Fort police station. 

The prosecution examined 14 witnesses and 24 documents in this case. The prosecution advocate R S Vijaya Mohan stated that it is very rare for a person to be convicted in two POCSO cases and pointed out that he showed obscene videos to the victims in both cases, according to a media report in the Indian Express. 

In the first case, the parents of a minor boy had taken him to the doctor's clinic for counselling as he was unable to focus on his studies. The psychologist used to sexually harass the boy after taking him to his consultation room. The parents informed the police through Childline, a helpline for children, after the boy revealed the incident to his parents. 

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