A Mumbai sessions court has sentenced a 34-year-old cleaner to one year in prison for forcibly kissing a saleswoman at a mall in Borivli, rejecting his claim that he had accidentally slipped and fallen against her.
Additional Sessions Judge P A Sane convicted Ritesh Armulla under Sections 74 and 75 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which deal with using criminal force against a woman with intent to outrage her modesty and sexual harassment. The court imposed one year of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1,000 under Section 74, along with one year of simple imprisonment and a fine of Rs 500 under Section 75. Both sentences will run concurrently.
The court directed that Rs 1,000 from the fine be paid to the victim, whose identity has been withheld, while the remaining amount would be credited to the government. Armulla was also granted set-off for the period he had already spent in custody since his arrest on September 17, 2025.
The incident took place at a mall in Borivli West at around 6 pm on September 17 last year. According to the prosecution, the victim was working as a saleswoman and was walking towards billing counter number 6 after taking a bottle of cold drink when Armulla approached her and asked for directions to the washroom.
The woman pointed towards the washroom, but the man repeatedly asked her to take him there. After she refused and continued towards the billing counter, he allegedly approached her from behind, knocked against her and forcibly kissed her. The impact caused her to fall, after which he kissed her again. Mall staff and members of the public caught him and police took him into custody the same day.
The victim lodged a first information report immediately after the incident. During the investigation, police prepared a spot panchnama, recorded witness statements and collected CCTV footage from the mall. The chargesheet was filed on November 11, 2025, and charges were framed on July 4, 2026.
The prosecution examined four witnesses, including the victim, a mall eyewitness, the investigating officer and an employee connected with the CCTV footage. The victim identified Armulla in court. The eyewitness also told the court that he had seen the accused kiss the woman, cause her to fall and kiss her again before he was apprehended.
The defence questioned the manner in which the CCTV footage had been proved and argued that the prosecution had not examined a mall official named Amar Jadhav. It also pointed to the absence of the footage’s hash value and denied that Armulla had used force or acted with an intention to outrage the woman’s modesty. The defence suggested that the crowd may have caused an accidental collision and fall.
The judge acknowledged weaknesses in the electronic evidence but held that the oral testimony of the victim and eyewitness was sufficient and trustworthy. The court said there was no reason for the victim to falsely implicate a man she did not know before the incident.
“Even for the sake of argument, if it is considered that a person slipped and fell on another person, the natural reaction would be different from the person kissing the person on whom he fell,” the judge said.
The court further held that following the woman towards the washroom, physically contacting her and kissing her twice constituted intentional conduct involving criminal force and explicit sexual overtures. The ruling is among the early convictions under the BNS, which replaced the Indian Penal Code. Before sentencing, the defence sought leniency on the grounds that Armulla had no previous criminal record and that this was his first offence. The court nevertheless imposed the concurrent prison terms and fines.
