'I Love You' An Expression, Needn't Have Sexual Intent: HC

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has acquitted a 35-year-old man accused of molesting a teenager, while observing that saying ‘I love you’ is merely an expression and does not in itself amount to “sexual intent".

Explaining a sexual act in the order, a bench of Justice Urmila Joshi-Phalke on Monday said it includes inappropriate touching, forcible disrobing, indecent gestures or remarks made with an intent to insult the modesty of a woman. “Words expressed ‘I love you’ would not by itself amount to sexual intent as contemplated by the legislature. There should be something more to suggest that the real intention behind saying ‘I love you’ was to drag the angle of sex," the bench observed.

The court said in this case, there is no evidence that reveals the accused had said ‘I love you’ with a sexual intent and, hence, it does not fall under the purview of molestation or sexual harassment. The HC quashed the man’s conviction, noting there was no circumstance to indicate his real intention was to establish sexual contact with the victim.

According to the complaint in the 2015 case, the man had accosted a 17-year-old girl in Nagpur, held her hand, and said ‘I love you’. A sessions court in Nagpur had convicted him under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act in 2017 and sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment.

The prosecution’s case is that the man accosted the girl when she was returning home from school, held her hand, asked her name and said “I love you". The girl managed to leave the place and went home. She told her father about the incident pursuant to which an FIR was lodged.