The Thalassery Fast Track Special Court verdict on Palathayi child abuse case has an observation that could potentially damage the reputation of former health and women and child welfare minister K K Shailaja. 

The special court had on November 15 sentenced a school teacher K Padmarajan alias Pappan Mash to imprisonment for life for penetrative sexual assault of a 10-year-old girl. The prosecution case was that the accused, the child's teacher, had abused her inside the school toilet on three days in January and February 2020.

Here is the POCSO Court judge Jalaja Rani's reference to Shailaja in the order: "It is learnt from the allegations raised in the writ petition before Hon’ble High Court that, on 21.09.20, the victim's mother had filed a petition before the Hon’ble Minister for Women and Child Welfare seeking appropriate action against the counsellors for their unethical and rude behaviour towards the victim. The petition is still pending and, I hope that there would be appropriate action in the matter."

This sounded like a censure of the former minister. The court found the behaviour of the counsellors repulsive. The judge said in the order that the counsellors who were brought in to help the minor survivor make her statement were functioning as "another investigation agency", and more brutally, were trying to shift the blame from the accused to another unidentified person. 

"The questions were obscene, vulgar and offensive to the child. On going through the questions asked by the counsellors, one will understand that their attempt was to support the defence contentions and to substantiate the case of sexual assault by an unknown person at Poyiloor," the judge said.

The court felt that the posers of the counsellors were framed to mislead the child into providing statements that could hint that she was abused elsewhere, and by someone else, and not in the school toilet by the teacher. They even tried to lure her into admitting that she had piles, which would imply that her bleeding was from such a rupture and not from the penetrative assault of the accused. The survivor had denied that she suffered from piles and later the medical expert, too, had ruled out such a condition in the child. 

The counsellors also tried to goad the survivor into saying that she had periods at the time of the incident. Medical evidence refuted this, too.

"Was the man who came in a Bullet handsome?" was one of the questions asked. The judge was livid. "How can a counsellor describe the beauty that a 10-year-old girl feels? How can they misrepresent the beauty in the mind of a 10-year-old child," she said.

"Did 'mash' promise to marry you?" was another poser. "The above question put forward to a 10-year-old child who does not even know anything about a marriage indicates the low quality of counsellor and their lack of knowledge about their duties," (sic) the court said.

The court also observed that at one point a counsellor showed the girl a sanitiser and asked her to compare the size of her abuser's genital with it. "Needless to say, if going through the questions suggested by the counsellors, it is clear that those counsellors do not deserve to continue in this job," the judge said.

It is in this context that the judge mentioned the unaddressed complaint made by the child's mother to the then women and child welfare minister.

On her part, Shailaja said that she had been in touch with the family right through the investigation. She said the parents of the child were in the police station when she had personally called up the DySP and instructed him to take up the investigation with all earnestness. She said they had even thanked her for it. 

"I have also told the police that the child should be interrogated with extreme care. I believe that the process was carried out with caution, but if any counsellor had crossed the limit and inflicted pain on the child, we will not stand in the way of any investigation," she said.

She also said that as the minister of women and child welfare, it was not within her powers to take action.