Akhya Pandey
On 26th August 2025, the Supreme Court ruled that a stray blow dealt to a child during a quarrel cannot be treated as “child abuse” under the Goa Children’s Act, 2003. The Court said the law is meant to deal with deliberate cruelty and sustained maltreatment, not a trivial act in the heat of the moment.
The case goes back to 2013, when a man in Goa allegedly struck a boy with his son’s school bag during an argument at a school. An FIR was registered a week later. The Children’s Court convicted him under Sections 323 (hurt), 352 (assault), 504 (insult) of the IPC, as well as under Section 8(2) of the Goa Act. The Bombay High Court at Goa later upheld that conviction in 2022, though it reduced the sentence.
On appeal, the Supreme Court examined what “child abuse” means under Section 2(m) of the Act. The Bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Sandeep Mehta made it clear that the provision is intended to punish serious abuse, not small scuffles. “Every trivial act cannot be branded as child abuse,” the Court observed, warning that stretching the law in this way would undermine its real purpose.
The Court set aside the conviction under the Goa Act and also under Section 504 IPC, saying there was no proof of intent to provoke a breach of peace. But it upheld the findings under Sections 323 and 352, since the act did involve use of force and minor hurt. Considering the incident was more than a decade old and not of a grave nature, the man was given the benefit of the Probation of Offenders Act and released on probation for one year.
The judgment draws a clear line: laws protecting children must be used firmly where there is real abuse, but they cannot be stretched to cover one-off quarrels or accidental acts.
Bench: Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Sandeep Mehta.
Case Name: Santosh Sahadev Khajnekar vs. State of Goa, Criminal Appeal No. 1991 of 2023.
Citation: 2025 INSC 1041.
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