Five centuries after Shakespeare wrote about the world’s most famous star-crossed young lovers, Romeo and Juliet popped up at India’s Supreme Court. The court was urging the government to consider adding a “Romeo-Juliet clause” to the Protection of Children from Child Sexual Offenses (POCSO) law where the offense of rape carries a minimum of three years to a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Jurisdictions where this clause exists include the US, where it is believed to have been first used, to make allowances in rape law for romantically-involved young people. This is based on the understanding that the law cannot criminalize sexual relations between adolescents who are close to the legal age of consent but not quite there yet.
In India, that age is 18 and, so, sexual relations with a girl below that age (even if she’s your wife) is legally, rape. Hearing an appeal against an Allahabad High Court judgment that had granted bail to a young man charged under POCSO, Supreme Court justices Sanjay Karol and N Kotiswar Singh retained bail but took exception to the medical tests ordered by the court — the mother had claimed her daughter was 12, the girl insisted she was 18.
Then, towards the end of its 66-page judgment, the apex court observed how POCSO was being “misused, misapplied and used as a tool for extracting revenge”. There was, the court said, a “grim societal chasm” between children and their families. “There are numerous instances where this law is used by families in opposition to relationships between young people.”
POCSO’s object is to protect minors from sexual abuse. But by defining everybody below 18 as a child incapable of consent, it has “trapped many adolescent couples in a legal paradox”, finds a 2025 study by Vidhi Legal Policy. One in four POCSO cases, or 24.3%, are ‘romantic’ cases, a study of 7,560 judgments between 2016 and 2020 from just three states, Assam, Maharashtra and West Bengal by Enfold Proactive Health Trust, found. Of these cases, 80.2% had been filed by family members angry with their daughters for running off with their partners (64.9% of cases). The accused was eventually acquitted on the grounds that the relationship was consensual in 61.7% of cases. But until then, young men end up languishing in jail for the crime of falling in love.
There are concerns from child rights activists that young girls could be groomed by far older men. The exception must be only for couples close-in-age.
The Supreme Court’s suggestion for the insertion of a Romeo-Juliet clause is not a free pass, the judgment makes clear. Courts must use discretion, evaluating cases individually. Is the relationship consensual? Victim statements can shed light. The aim must be to “balance the protection of minors with the recognition of their autonomy.”
Autonomy is a tricky word in a country where up to 95% of marriages are arranged, according to the India Human Development Survey. Several BJP-ruled states have laws that virtually prohibit interfaith marriage. In Karnataka where the Congress now rules, there is no talk of repealing this law.
Families continue to vest honor on the sexual “purity” of their daughters. Murder of young people by their families for crossing caste and faith lines, or merely exercising choice, remains our modern nation’s ancient shame.
Earlier this week, BJP councillor in Delhi Munesh Dedha uploaded a video of herself costing a young couple for sitting in a park together. Following a public uproar over concerns of moral policing, she claimed she was merely responding to complaints that the park had “become a hotbed of anti-social activity”. There is another front where change is needed just as much.
Namita Bhandare writes on gender. The views expressed are personal
