

POCSO case update : SIT have upgraded the charges against Bandi Sai Bhageerath 🚨
The original FIR, registered on 8 May, carried charges under Sections 74 and 75 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Sections 11 read with 12 of the POCSO Act, sexual harassment offences carrying a maximum sentence of three to five years.
The charges now stand altered to Section 5(I) read with Section 6 of the POCSO Act. Invoking Section 5 revises the charges from sexual harassment to aggravated penetrative sexual assault.
Section 5(I) of POSCO refers to penetrative sexual assault causing survivors hurt or causing bodily harm and injury or injury to the sexual organs of the child.
Section 6 prescribes the punishment: a minimum of 20 years’ rigorous imprisonment, extendable to life imprisonment, meaning the remainder of the convict’s natural life, or death, along with a fine paid to the survivor for medical expenses and rehabilitation.
The upgrade matters for two reasons.
First, it reflects what the survivor told investigators when she recorded her statement, an account that apparently went significantly beyond what the original FIR captured.
Second, it dismantles the central legal argument Bhageerath’s counsel advanced in the anticipatory bail petition filed before the Telangana High Court on Monday.