PUNE (INDIA)
Union of Catholic Asian News (UCA News) [Hong Kong]
August 19, 2025
By Michael Gonsalves
No prima facie evidence that Bishop Emeritus Thomas Dabre of Poona did not inform police, says judge
A court in the western Indian state of Maharashtra has acquitted a retired bishop, saying it could not find “prima facie evidence” of the bishop’s failure to report the priest’s alleged child abuse in his former diocese.
Retired Bishop Thomas Dabre of Poona (now Pune) was named as a co-accused in the case of violating the provisions of a stringent law — the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
The case charged Father Vincent Pereira, the then principal of the diocesan St. Patrick’s High School and Junior College, of abusing a 15-year-old schoolboy.
The Aug. 8 acquittal order of a district court in Pune, made public on Aug. 16, said: “There is no prima facie evidence” to show the bishop violated the provision of the law, which criminalizes an official’s failure to report abuse of a child.
The case accused the bishop of violating two sections of the law: a citizen failing to report the abuse and an official failing to report the abuse of his subordinate.
While an ordinary person’s failure could be punished with a six-month jail term, a fine, or both, an official’s failure can be punished with a one-year jail term and a fine.
The court order noted that Dabre, in a meeting, asked a police officer if he should report the sexual assault incident to them. However, the officer said that a bishop cannot be compelled to file a complaint and advised him that only a victim can file a complaint.
“The Bishop thus discharged his duty of communicating the incident to the police,” the order stated while adding that Dabre still directed his subordinate to report the incident to the police through a letter, giving details about Pereira’s alleged misconduct and the action taken against him.
“This shows that the accused [Dabre] had reported the incident to the police,” the order added.
Father Roque Alphonse, administrator of the Poona diocese, told UCA News on Aug. 18 that the court order “is a great relief for our diocese” as the “baseless allegation” had sullied the name of the bishop and the diocese.
“Our bishop has been proven innocent,” Alphonse added.
The case came to court in September 2022, naming Pereira as the prime accused. But in a 2024 supplementary chargesheet, Dabre was named a co-accused, six years after the alleged crime first came to light in 2018.
The charge was filed a year after Dabre retired as the bishop of Poona in 2023.
The bishop’s lawyer, Advocate Santosh Bali, told the court that the police filed the supplementary chargesheet against his client “without evidence” and prayed for his discharge.
Pereira, who was suspended from public priestly ministry after being arrested by police in September 2018, was also released on bail in March 2020.
He remains the prime accused in the case, and the trial will continue against him and the school counsellor, Jacklyn Christiana Vaz, in the same court.
The priest is also an accused in two other cases related to the sex abuse of children.