‘Not meant to criminalise consensual relationships’

THE OBSERVATIONS WERE MADE WHILE GRANTING BAIL TO AN ACCUSED UNDER POCSO ACT AFTER HE MARRIED A 17-YEAR-OLD

NEW DELHI: The intention of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act was to protect children from sexual exploitation and it was “never meant to criminalise consensual romantic relationships between young adults”, the Delhi high court has said.

Justice Jasmeet Singh said the facts and circumstances of each case have to be taken into account as there might be instances where the survivor of a sexual offence could be under pressure or trauma and be forced to settle.

The observations were made while granting bail to a man arrested for abduction and rape as well as under the relevant Pocso sections after he married a 17-year-old girl.

When the girl was 17 years old in June 2021, she was married off to a man by her family but she did not want to stay with him. In October 2021, she came to the house of the accused, who was her friend, and he took her to Punjab where they got married.

While the couple was granted police protection by the Punjab and Haryana high court, the parents of the girl lodged a complaint in Delhi, claiming that the girl was 17 years old when she got married to the man. The man was arrested and had been in judicial custody since December 2021 and approached the Delhi high court for bail.

Last month, on October 20, while granting bail to the man, the court noted that the girl had married the man out of her free will and without any undue influence or coercion.

“Thus, this is not a case where the girl was coerced into the relationship with the boy. In fact, the girl herself went to the man’s house and asked him to marry her. The statement of the victim makes it clear that this is a romantic relationship between the two and that the sexual act involved between them was consensual,” the court said.

It also noted that although the victim is a minor and her consent does not have any legal bearing, the factum of a consensual relationship borne out of love should be of consideration.

“To ignore the statement of the victim and let the accused suffer, in the present case, would otherwise amount to perversity of justice,” the judge added.