Supreme Court directs CBI probe into FIR lodged by mother for sexual assault of daughter by father

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has directed the CBI to take over the investigation into a 2024 FIR lodged by a woman in Bengaluru alleging sexual assault of the girl child, studying in Class V, by her estranged husband.

A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and K V Vishwanathan noted, this is the most unfortunate case pending before this court for two years.

"This litigation has something to do with a matrimonial dispute between the husband and wife and in the process, their daughter, a young girl aged 11 as on date is being tormented for no good reason. There are other litigations between the parties pending in the High Court of Karnataka. We do not propose to say anything in that regard,'' the bench said in its order on April 7, 2026.

As per the record, the court noted that the husband succeeded all throughout in so far as the custody of the minor daughter was concerned, of course, subject to visitation rights being given to the mother.

However, one fine day, i.e., on March 28, 2024, the mother lodged a First Information Report with the Jayaprakash Nagar Police Station, Sub-Division - Jayanagar, under various provisions of the IPC and Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 and Section 10 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012.

In 2025, the court tried to convince the parties to work out something which would be in the absolute interest of the minor daughter and handed over the custody to the mother and stayed the proceedings in the FIR.

In such circumstances, the bench said, ''We want the FIR lodged by the mother, i.e., the respondent before us to be investigated in the right direction and in accordance with law."

The CBI, for the purpose of effective and meaningful investigation should constitute a committee, headed by an officer not below the rank of DIG nominated by the Director, CBI. The second member in the committee should be a well renowned lady psychologist, the bench said.

"Insofar as other members of the committee are concerned, including lady doctor, etc, we leave it to the better discretion of the CBI. We have thought fit to resort to this process keeping in mind the sensitivity of the entire issue,'' the bench said.

The court directed the CBI to commence with the investigation after constituting the committee at the earliest and file a status report before this court. It clarified the CBI would not take any coercive steps against both the parties, except that they should cooperate in the investigation. The bench scheduled the matter for consideration on July 17, 2026.