Article 20(1) of the Constitution forbids subjecting a person to a penalty greater than the one in force when the offence was committed. In Mohd Anzar Ahmad v. State NCT of Delhi, CRL.A. 276/2025, decided on 2 November 2026, Justice Madhu Jain applied that guarantee to a conviction under Section 6 of the POCSO Act for offences committed between December 2014 and February 2015 — when the provision carried a minimum of ten years, not the twenty introduced by the 2019 amendment. The conviction was affirmed on the victim's consistent testimony, but the 30-year term of simple imprisonment was replaced with 15 years' rigorous imprisonment, the court noting that the trial court had neither justified the length nor even matched the statutory requirement of rigorous imprisonment.
The facts and the trial
A schoolgirl left home in December 2014 and did not return. The prosecution case was that the appellant, a neighbour known to the family, took her to Moradabad, Bengal and Akbarpur, assaulting her repeatedly; she was recovered in February 2015, about two months pregnant, and the pregnancy was terminated. The trial court convicted him under Sections 363 and 506 IPC and Section 6 POCSO, sentencing him in January 2025 to, among other terms, 30 years' simple imprisonment on the POCSO count. He had been in custody since 13 February 2015.
What survived the appeal — and what did not
The retrospectivity point
Law at the time of offence (2014-15)
Section 6 POCSO: rigorous imprisonment of not less than ten years, extendable to imprisonment for life, with fine.
Law after the 2019 amendment
Minimum raised to twenty years, extendable to imprisonment for the remainder of natural life, or death. Inapplicable to earlier offences by virtue of Article 20(1).
The court anchored this in the Supreme Court's reasoning in Satauram Mandavi: an enhanced minimum enacted after the offence cannot inform the sentence. Sentencing courts dealing with historic POCSO offences must therefore locate the statute as it stood on the date of the offence — a point that is easy to miss when a trial concludes a decade later under a much-amended Act.
Proportionality in long-delayed trials
Equally significant is the court's insistence that a sentence far above the minimum needs reasons. The trial court's 30-year term was unexplained; the High Court weighed the aggravating circumstances — repeated assaults on a minor and their consequences — against the appellant's age at the time (about 25), the absence of similar antecedents and nearly eleven years already spent in custody, and fixed 15 years' rigorous imprisonment as proportionate within the statutory range. For appellate practice, the judgment illustrates that sentence appeals are not an afterthought to conviction appeals: the character of imprisonment, the applicable statutory version and the articulation of reasons are each independent grounds of challenge.
Practice note: In any POCSO appeal arising from pre-2019 offences, verify three things against the date of occurrence — the applicable minimum, the character of imprisonment the section prescribes, and whether the trial court recorded reasons for exceeding the minimum. Set-off under the usual provisions for custody already undergone should be expressly sought, as it was granted here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a conviction rest on the victim's testimony alone?
Yes, if the testimony is cogent, consistent on material particulars and inspires confidence. In this case the account of the abduction, the places of confinement and the assaults was held consistent, and a medically terminated pregnancy corroborated the fact of intercourse even though it could not identify the offender.
What did the inconclusive DNA report mean for the case?
Neither identification nor exclusion. The court treated it as neutral: it did not corroborate the prosecution, but it also did not discredit the victim's account, which could independently sustain the conviction.
Why was the sentence reduced from 30 to 15 years?
Two reasons. The 2019 amendment raising the Section 6 minimum from 10 to 20 years could not apply to 2014-15 offences, by force of Article 20(1). And the trial court had not explained why 30 years was needed instead of a shorter term; weighing the appellant's age, antecedents and over a decade of custody against the gravity of repeated assaults on a minor, 15 years' rigorous imprisonment was held proportionate.
Can an appellate court change simple imprisonment to rigorous imprisonment?
Where the statute itself prescribes rigorous imprisonment — as Section 6 POCSO does — a sentence of simple imprisonment does not conform to law, and the appellate court can correct the character of the sentence while deciding the appeal, as was done here.