Gurugram: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has suspended the 20-year prison sentence of a young man who was convicted under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act in 2023, citing the small age gap between the victim and convict, delayed filing of a police complaint, and the convict’s own status as a minor at the time.
A division bench of Justice Anoop Chitkara and Justice Sukhvinder Kaur passed the order on 6 February, allowing the convict to walk free on bail pending his appeal, despite opposition from the state. He had spent about six months in jail.
The incident allegedly occurred in February 2023 when the boy was 17 years and five months old, and the girl was 13 years and 10 months old.
An FIR was registered over a month later, in March, on a complaint by the girl’s maternal uncle, after he spotted her with the boy and a co-accused.
A sessions court had in August 2025 convicted the teen under sections of the Indian Penal Code related to kidnapping, abducting a woman to compel marriage, forcing her into illicit intercourse and criminal conspiracy, along with aggravated penetrative sexual assault on a child under the POCSO Act, sentencing him to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment.
His adult co-accused was convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to five years. A coordinate bench suspended that sentence in December 2025.
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What the court considered
The high court acknowledged that while the boy’s lawyers sought parity with the co-accused, whose sentence had been suspended, parity alone wasn’t grounds for bail because of the substantially different sentences—five years versus 20 years.
However, the bench noted several factors that weighed in favour of suspension.
The court observed that the FIR was lodged more than a month after the alleged incident. According to the victim’s statement, the alleged act occurred in February 2023, but she did not report it until her maternal uncle noticed her with the boy and the co-accused in March.
“It means that if the victim’s uncle had not spotted her along with the applicant, then in all probabilities no complaint would have been made to the police,” the order stated.
The judges highlighted what they called a “fundamental legal obstacle”—under POCSO and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, a girl below 18 cannot legally consent to sexual intercourse, and any such act amounts to statutory rape regardless of consent.
“Probably, neither the boy nor the girl would be aware of the Sovereign’s restrictions before they could go intimate,” the bench observed.
The court also pointed to the four-year age gap between the two as a significant factor, adding that the circumstances suggested consent.
“Thus, when the age gap between the boy and the girl is little, and all other tell-tale signs of coitus point towards consent, the gigantic scale of Justice would sway to strike a balance between the statutes and the ground realities,” the judgment read.
The bench noted that while Section 29 of POCSO raises a presumption of guilt for certain offences unless proven otherwise, the trial court’s judgment did not refer to any rebuttal of this presumption.
However, the judges said there were “certain contradictions, issues with credibility, and also a delay in reporting” that needed detailed analysis during the final appeal hearing.
The ‘formative years’ argument
One of the key considerations for the court was the boy’s age and future prospects.
Though he was tried as an adult under the Juvenile Justice Act—which allows children above 16 accused of heinous offences to be tried in regular courts after preliminary assessment—the bench emphasised he was still a minor when the alleged offence occurred.
“The applicant is a young boy and is in the formative years of skill development, and given the preceding factors, he should not be restricted from acquiring employable education,” the court said.
The judges also noted the boy was a first-time offender with no criminal antecedents and had given an undertaking through his lawyer not to cause any harm to the victim.
Practical considerations of court workload also played a role. The bench acknowledged it had 18 to 19 pending death reference cases that take priority, besides numerous appeals in murder and dacoity cases involving habitual offenders.
“If such a list is made, the present case would certainly fall lower on the rung,” the order stated, adding that the appeal was unlikely to be heard in the near future.
Stringent conditions imposed
The suspension of the sentence comes with strict conditions. The boy has been directed to stay away from the victim’s property, workplace, residence and family members. He must furnish bail bonds of Rs 25,000 with a surety of the same amount.
He is required to inform authorities of any change in his residential address or mobile number. The court has also ordered him to surrender all weapons, firearms and ammunition, if any, within 15 days of his release.
The order makes clear that if the boy commits any non-bailable offence punishable with more than seven years imprisonment, the state can move an application for cancellation of the bail.
The bench clarified it was not commenting on the merits of the case and that all aspects, including contradictions in evidence and credibility issues, would require detailed examination during the final appeal hearing.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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