HC quashes POCSO proceedings pending against TN youth

The Madras High Court has set aside the criminal proceedings pending before a Special Court for POCSO cases in Coimbatore against a youth, who had a consensual love affair with a minor girl and later married her, when she was below 18 years of age.

Justice N Sathish Kumar quashed the proceedings, while allowing a criminal original petition from Suraj, recently.

The petition was filed to quash the proceedings in a Special Court in Coimbatore for various offences under the POCSO Act and the Prohibition of Child Marriages Act, 2006.

The allegation against Suraj was that he fell in love with a Muslim girl and got married in June, 2019 when she was a minor. A year later, she gave birth to a child. Following a complaint from her mother, a case was registered and a chargesheet filed and the same was taken on file by the Special Court for POCSO cases. Hence, the present petition to quash the case. The judge cited a ruling of the High Court in 2019, which had suggested lowering the age from 18 years to 16 years, as most of the love affairs blossom during adolescence. The definition of ‘child’ under Section 2(d) of the POCSO Act can be redefined as 16 instead of 18 years. Any consensual sex after the age of 16 or bodily contact or allied acts can be excluded from the rigorous provisions of the POCSO Act and such sexual assault, if it is so defined can be tried under more liberal provision, which can be introduced in the Act itself and to distinguish the cases of teen age relationship after 16 years, from the cases of sexual assault on children below 16 years. The Act can be amended to the effect that the age of the offender ought not to be more than five years or so than the consensual victim girl of 16 years or more, so that the impressionable age of the victim girl cannot be taken advantage of by a person much older and crossed the age of presumably infatuation or innocence, the judge had said.

In the present case, Justice Sathish Kumar noted the offences in question are purely individual/personal in nature. It involves the youth and the girl, both young and their future. Quashing the proceedings will not affect any overriding public interest in this case and it will in fact pave the way for the two to settle down in their life and look for better future prospects. No useful purpose will be served in continuing with the criminal proceedings and keeping them pending will only swell the mental agony of the petitioner and his wife, the judge observed.

”In view of the above, this Court is inclined to quash the criminal proceedings in exercise of its jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code,” the judge said.