New Delhi: Warning that rigid enforcement of POCSO laws can end up “destroying lives” in cases of teenage consensual love, the Delhi High Court has formulated principles to deal with such cases. These came while the court was quashing a POCSO case against a man who was married to a minor and also had a child with her.
At the heart of the ruling lies a difficult question: When the victim is a minor (at the time of the crime), regardless of consent, should courts still press ahead with prosecution even if the girl, now older, insists she suffered no harm and seeks to preserve her family?
In answering this, the court stressed that justice cannot ignore lived realities and that continuing prosecution in such cases may amount to an exercise in “futility”, especially where it risks leaving both the woman and her child without support.
In doing so, Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani laid down a non-exhaustive set of factors to be assessed before quashing such cases. These include determination of factors such as whether the victim’s consent is genuine and free from pressure, the consistency of her statements, the nature of the relationship, and whether the marriage appears bona fide or merely a device to escape liability.
Courts must also consider whether the couple continues to live together, whether they have children, the age gap between the parties, and whether any element of violence or exploitation is involved. Above all, the ruling underscores, the “best interests” of both the woman and the child must remain central.
The case before the court involved a 22-year-old man accused of rape and aggravated penetrative sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The FIR was registered in June 2025 after doctors at Safdarjung Hospital informed the police when the girl, who was then 17, arrived to deliver a baby, triggering mandatory reporting requirements under Section 21 of the Act.
The couple, however, had already married in September 2024 and were living together. Before the court, the girl said she had never filed any complaint and had married of her own free will. She maintained that she had no grievance against her husband and warned that continuing the case would “destroy” her family and leave her child without support.
While reiterating that a minor’s consent has no legal value, the court flagged a deeper “conceptual dissonance” in such cases. Drawing on legal and philosophical thought, the court observed that not every legal wrong results in actual harm, yet the POCSO statutory framework constructs the minor as a victim, irrespective of her lived experience.
“In such situations,” the court noted, “the absence of any felt injury or grievance raises a serious question as to whether continuing criminal proceedings truly serves the ends of justice.” Importantly, the court held that quashing proceedings under POCSO is not barred, but must be approached with “careful and sensitive consideration”. It warned against a mechanical application of the law that could lead to the “re-victimisation” of the very person it seeks to protect.
At the same time, the court cautioned against using marriage or settlement as a blanket shield to retrospectively legitimise an offence. Courts, it said, must remain alert to manipulation or coercion by offenders seeking to evade punishment. The court ultimately made clear that while the law mandates protection of minors, it cannot lose sight of the human consequences of its application, particularly where continuing prosecution could irreparably harm the very lives it intends to safeguard.
Why victim wanted the case quashed
Quoting American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes Junior, the court noted in its order that the life of the law has not been logic, it has been experience. In doing so, the court added that this one line exposed the disconnect between rigid legal constructs and the human lives it aims to govern.
The court was acting on the accused man’s plea which sought setting aside of an FIR registered in June 2025, against him for the alleged rape and aggravated penetrative sexual assault of a minor, who was below 18 years of age, at the time of the incident.
Section 21 of the POCSO Act mandates six months imprisonment or fine as punishment for failing to report or record cases of child sexual abuse.
Saying that she has no grievance against her husband, the girl told the court that she had married the accused out of her own free will, and punishing the man would have disastrous consequences like rendering her child without any support or sustenance.
How courts can deal with such cases
In cases of consensual adolescent relationships, Justice Bhambhani’s bench said the lived experience of the parties, absence of felt injuries or grievances suggest the absence of harm, the court noted, while pointing out that a minor’s consent is legally irrelevant. In turn, this converts even otherwise non-harmful experiences for minors “into a wrong”.
“This produces a conceptual dissonance: The minor girl is constructed as a victim not because of any demonstrable harm that she may have endured, but because the statutory framework denies her capacity for valid consent,” the court said.
Although Section 19 of the Act, requires mandatory reporting of such offences by authorities such as hospitals, irrespective of the minor’s consent, the court noted that when there is no victim in the eyes of the law, pressing on with a criminal prosecution would be an exercise in “futility”.
Making it clear that the point of law is to ensure justice, the court said that it cannot lose sight of the “enormity of the consequences that would befall a victim in a case like the present one”. The court cannot ignore the fact that two lives, that is, of the de-juré victim and her minor child, would be destroyed, it noted.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)