POCSO Act, 2012
Trauma-Informed Adjudication, Secondary Victimisation and Sheetal Vasant Thakur v. Chirag Arora
A child who has been abused carries the trauma into every room of the justice system. How that system behaves decides whether the child's distress eases over the life of the case or deepens. Secondary victimisation is the name for the second kind of harm: harm caused by the process rather than the offence. Trauma-informed adjudication is the answer: a way of conducting every step so that it does not add to the child's injury. In Sheetal Vasant Thakur v. Chirag Arora, 2026 INSC 638, the Supreme Court applied these ideas to one of the most intrusive steps of all, the psychological evaluation of a child.
Two journeys for the same child, what causes secondary victimisation, and what the law does about it
1. Secondary Victimisation
§ How the process harms • Repeated retelling. Each interview, examination and hearing makes the child relive the abuse. • Confrontation. Seeing the accused in the corridor or courtroom can terrify the child and silence the account. • Hostile questioning. Aggressive cross-examination, insinuations about character, and disbelief tell the child the abuse was her fault. • Exposure. Publication of the child's identity brings stigma, bullying and pressure to retract. • Delay. Years of waiting keep the child tied to the worst event of her life. • Intrusive evaluations. Layered psychological assessments, often sought by parents for their own litigation, add further retellings and scrutiny. • Judicial language. Moralising or insensitive remarks in orders and judgments wound the child and deter others from coming forward. |
2. Trauma-Informed and Child-Sensitive Adjudication
§ What it means Understanding trauma. A traumatised child may give an account that is fragmented, delayed, inconsistent in detail, or emotionally flat. These are features of trauma, not in themselves signs of untruth, and a court must not treat them as such. Designing each step to avoid harm. Every provision of the Act's procedure answers one of the harms: a good first record under Sections 24 to 26; questions through the court under Section 33(2); no character assassination under Section 33(6); the child called once under Section 33(5); screens under Section 36; a closed court under Section 37; time limits under Section 35. The child as a person, not evidence. The child's welfare and dignity are ends in themselves, not only means to a conviction. Judicial sensitivity. In the Allahabad case, 2026 INSC 165, the Supreme Court asked an expert committee to draft guidelines on sensitivity and compassion in sexual offence cases; in In Re: Right to Privacy of Adolescents (2024), it disapproved moralising observations in a High Court judgment. |
3. Repeated Psychological Examination of the Child
§ Why evaluation itself can harm • Evaluation is a form of retelling. A psychological assessment asks the child to revisit the events and emotions of the abuse, often at length. • Multiplied by litigation. In custody disputes where abuse is alleged, each parent may seek evaluations to support their own case, producing a series of assessments by different experts. • The child as a tool. The child's mind becomes a battleground for adult litigation, and the process may do more damage than the dispute it serves. |
4. Sheetal Vasant Thakur v. Chirag Arora
📖 Sheetal Vasant Thakur v. Chirag Arora, 2026 INSC 638; 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 618; decided 11 June 2026 The background. A mother and father were in a bitter custody dispute over their daughter, then about ten. The mother alleged that the father had sexually abused the child, and proceedings under the POCSO Act were pending against him. The Bombay High Court directed a psychological evaluation of the child, later substituting a panel of experts for a single expert. The decision. A Bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice N. Kotiswar Singh, in a judgment by Justice Kotiswar Singh, modified the High Court's orders, holding that such a multi-layered process risked re-traumatisation and secondary victimisation of a child who was an alleged victim of sexual abuse. The matter was remitted to the Family Court with directions, including for a psychologist to assess the parents and to consult the child's existing therapist before any further evaluation of the child was considered. The governing standard. The Court held that the child's welfare, dignity and psychological well-being are paramount, overriding the claims of either parent, and that minimum intrusion and minimum exposure must be the norm. The POCSO connection. It read these principles with Sections 24, 33(5), 36 and 39 of the POCSO Act, and with Sakshi v. Union of India. |
Principle | What it requires |
|---|---|
Necessity | An evaluation only where genuinely necessary, with reasons recorded as to its purpose, relevance, and why less intrusive means will not do |
One expert | Ordinarily a single independent expert appointed by the court, qualified in child psychology or trauma; a panel only exceptionally |
Parents first | Consider assessing the parents before subjecting the child to extensive evaluation, since the child's welfare depends on them |
Neutrality | The evaluation must not become an adversarial exercise to support one parent's case |
Confidentiality | The child's disclosures, recordings and notes kept confidential and not ordinarily given to the parties |
No finding on guilt | Experts must not pronounce on criminal culpability, which is for the court alone |
Continuity | An existing, trusted therapeutic relationship should ordinarily be continued |
Supervision | The court retains continuing oversight and must modify or end the process if it harms the child |
Parens patriae | The court cannot hand its responsibility for the child to experts or to the parents |
5. Landmark Points
- Secondary victimisation is harm caused by the justice process, not the offence.
- Trauma-informed adjudication understands trauma's effects and designs each step to avoid adding to it.
- The Act's safeguards in ss. 24 to 26 and 33 to 38 each answer a specific harm.
- Sheetal Vasant Thakur v. Chirag Arora, 2026 INSC 638. Minimum intrusion; one expert; parents first; confidentiality; no expert finding on guilt; continuity; supervision.
- 2026 INSC 165. An expert committee on guidelines for judicial sensitivity in sexual offence cases.
6. Frequently Asked Questions
What is secondary victimisation?
Harm to the child caused by the justice process itself: repeated retelling, confrontation with the accused, hostile questioning, exposure, delay, intrusive evaluations and insensitive judicial language.
What is trauma-informed adjudication?
Conducting every step of a case with an understanding of how trauma affects a child, so that the process does not add to the harm, and not treating the effects of trauma as signs of untruth.
What did the Supreme Court decide in Sheetal Vasant Thakur v. Chirag Arora?
That a multi-layered psychological evaluation of a child who was an alleged POCSO victim risked re-traumatisation, and that minimum intrusion must be the norm: evaluation only where necessary, ordinarily by one independent expert, with confidentiality and continuing judicial supervision.
Which POCSO provisions did the Court rely on?
Sections 24, 33(5), 36 and 39, together with Sakshi v. Union of India.