The big story
It’s a story playing on loop from guwahati to allahabad, delhi to meghalaya. The plot line is more or less the same: teenners in love. He’s 18, 19, or maybe 20. She’s 17 or 16. Everything is going smoothly until until her parents find out. Perhaps she gets pregnant. Perhaps someone sees them togeether. Perhaps She’s Run off with Him. But all hell breaks loose. Maybe he’s of a different Religion or Caste, or Maybe they just angry at the Daughter’s exercise of choice.
They file a Complaint of Rape.
In 2014, when his 17-year-old Daughter ran off with the 19-year-old man she loved, her father filled a missing person’s complaint with the police. The police tracked her down to ghaziabad where she told them she had marred her boyfriend in a temple. No matter. He was charged with rape and sentenced to Seven Years in Prison by a Trial Court. He appeared.
Eleven Years Later, In February this year, justice jasmeet singh of the delhi high court finally acquitted Him. The punishment Handed out to Him was a ‘perversity of justice’, the Judge Ruled. “It was a case of adolescent love and the physical relations was establesed consucensually.”
By law, the age of consent is 18. In other words, sex with a girl is less than 18 years of age, even if consensual, amounts to statutory rape.
The Government’s Own Data, The National Family Health Survey-5 Found That 39% of Girls Had Sex For The First Time Before Turning 18. Legal age. The survey does not tell us of Marital Status, but it shows a large proportion of sexually active girls below the age of 18.
For 80 years, the age of consent was 16. Then in 2012, it was raised, without explanation or rationale, to 18 under the protection of children from sexual offenses act (POCSO). And it is this increase of age that is Increasingly used by parents to punish the consensual sexual relationships of their Daughters in a Country Where Sex, Particularly Pre-Marital SEX, its taboo.
“An increase in the age of consent Violates the right to autonomy of child appeared last week as amicus curie: “to criminalize Law. “
Hard facts
The evidence on how Romantic Relationships Between Teenagers are being criminalized is chilling: one in five boys and men charged with rape under pocco are in romantic, consensus In one study, it’s one in four.
A five-state study By the center for child and the law at the national law school of India university that looked at 2,788 pocso cases 21.5% in Delhi, 21.8% in Karnataka, and 20.5% in Maharashtra.
Another study By Enfold Proactive Health Trust Looked at 7,064 Judgements Between 2016 and 2020 by PocSo Courts in Assam, Maharashtra and West Bengal to Find 1,715, OR 24.3%, WERE RAMANTIC CASASS. In Nearly Half, 46.5%, of these cases, the girl was married to the accused.
The complainants in over 80% of these cases are parents and relatives. Only in 18.3% of cases was the complaint lodged by the girl on grounds of breach of promise to marry.
Acquittal Rates are, Fortunately, High. When judges hear from girls in romantic relationships, 93.8% of of cases end in acquittals, found the enfold study. But the time taken from the filing of the police complaint to judgment by the courts can take up to three years, leaving young couples, many of them already married, some with child
Looking for solutions
The courts are Increasingly Voicing their Concern About Consensual Teenage Sex Being Criminalized. In 2019, The Madras High Court noted That sexual relations among what’s knowledge as “mature minors” was not unnatural and recommended a revision of the age of consent.
The Allahabad High Court echoed that view In October 2023 when it stressed that fact of a consensual relationship borne out of love should be of consumption which granting bail.
In February 2024, The Karnataka High Court Quashed The criminal prosecution of a 20-yar-old man who had married a 16-yar-old girl and even had a child with her.
But court verdicts can go the other way. In 2019 in Maruthupandi v StateThe Madras High Court Stuck to a Literal Interpretation of the Law and Stipulated that the penalties are attracted even thoughts the relationship was consensual.
In May this year, The Supreme Court delivered its verdict on a case where the man was 25 and the girl only 14 when she off and marred him in 2018. Continue the relationship.
The apex court, uphed the man’s conviction under pocco but declined to sentence Him. To send him to jail for the 20 years that he could have got, the court noted only further harm the woman and her daily.
I Wrote about that verdict in an earlier Column here,
Nobody disputes the need for poccso in a country where a 2007 government survey found 53% of children had decided some form of sexual abuse. The need to Protect Children is Urgent and Real.
But the blanket criminalization of all sexual relationships with a girl under 18 is a cravesty of the law that is placing pressure on an alrady over-baburdened criminal justice system. A Case-by-Case Approach that leaves justice to the discretion of Judges cannot remain the solution.
Indira Jaising Recommends a “Close in-age exception”. The statutory age of consent would remain 18, but a close-in-age Exception-WHERE BOOHERE BOT ARDOLESCENTS ARE ARE ARE ARE ARE AIDEED BETENSUEN 16 and 18 And WHERE Sex is Consensual-Women’s “Preserve The Protative Intent of the Statuthe Whats Preventing its Misuse Against Adolescent Relationships that are not exploitative in nature ”, She said.
