Under POCSO, consent on trial

In a humble two-bedroom flat successful a quiescent residential neighbourhood successful Karnataka, a framed photograph of a mates locked successful an clasp hangs connected a wall. Seated beneath it, Nithya, 20, speaks with composure: “At 16, I didn’t cognize falling successful emotion would travel astatine a price,” she says.

She met Rajesh erstwhile she was inactive successful school. He was 4 years older. His household had precocious moved into the neighbourhood, renting a location a fewer blocks away. “As clichéd arsenic it sounds, it was emotion astatine archetypal sight,” she recalls, a faint grin flickering crossed her face.

But her parents opposed the narration from the infinitesimal they recovered out. “He belonged to a antithetic caste. It wasn’t thing they could look past,” she says. As a child, she had been discouraged from adjacent befriending children from different castes. “So I expected resistance,” she adds. “But I was naïve capable to judge they would yet relent.”

When she refused to extremity the relationship, punishment followed. “I would beryllium beaten for days astatine a stretch,” she says, her shoulders stiffening astatine the memory. “My parent would fastener maine successful my room. Sometimes I wasn’t adjacent fixed food.” She had nary mode of reaching Rajesh. “But what kept maine going,” she says quietly, “was my emotion for him.”

Eventually, connected a acold December greeting successful 2021, erstwhile she was inactive 16, she softly slipped retired of the location — an enactment of defiance that would irreversibly change the people of their lives. She told her parents she was leaving for tuition. Instead, she borrowed a friend’s telephone and dialled Rajesh’s number. “I told him I was coming,” she recalls. “Then we near unneurotic and took structure astatine his relative’s house.”

Within days, her parents approached the police. A kidnapping lawsuit was registered, followed by rape charges nether the Indian Penal Code, 1860, and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO).

Law and consequence

Enacted arsenic a dedicated instrumentality to combat kid intersexual abuse, POCSO defines a “child” arsenic immoderate idiosyncratic beneath the property of 18 and criminalises each intersexual acts involving them. As a result, adjacent consensual, non-exploitative intersexual relationships betwixt adolescents autumn wrong its ambit, often attracting stringent mandatory minimum condemnation of 7 years, which tin widen to beingness imprisonment.

In January 2026, acknowledging the increasing concerns implicit the instrumentality being invoked by disgruntled families to “settle scores”, the Supreme Court urged the Union government to see introducing a “Romeo and Juliet” clause successful the statute. Such a proviso would exempt consensual intersexual enactment betwixt adolescents adjacent successful property from prosecution for statutory rape, portion preserving the Act’s cardinal nonsubjective of protecting children from abuse. However, the tribunal did not clarify what would suffice arsenic ‘close-in-age’, leaving the scope of immoderate specified objection uncertain.

Shruthi Ramakrishnan, subordinate manager of probe astatine Enfold Proactive Health Trust, a non-profit organisation based successful Bengaluru, assisting victims of kid intersexual abuse, points retired that POCSO has had the unintended effect of criminalising consensual romanticist relationships betwixt adolescents, upending young lives successful the process.

“We are progressively seeing the instrumentality being weaponised erstwhile families reason inter-caste oregon inter-religious relationships,” she says. “Such cases typically statesman with a missing persons ailment oregon a kidnapping complaint aft teenagers permission location against parental wishes. The boy, irrespective of his age, is astir invariably named arsenic the accused, portion the miss is treated arsenic the victim, presumed incapable of consenting.”

A 2022 study by Enfold, analysing 7,064 POCSO judgments delivered betwixt 2016 and 2020 by peculiar courts successful Assam, Maharashtra, and West Bengal, recovered that 24.3% of cases progressive “romantic” relationships betwixt consenting adolescents. In 80.2% of these cases, complaints were filed by the girl’s parents aft she pursued a narration against their wishes.

However, Ramakrishnan notes that galore families record POCSO complaints without afloat grasping what the process entails. “At the clip of filing the complaint, they often simply privation their daughters to instrumentality location oregon to chopped disconnected interaction with the accused,” she says. “They bash not realise that erstwhile an FIR is registered, it tin culminate successful a full-blown rape proceedings with lasting ramifications for everyone involved.”

This, she explains, contributes to the precocious acquittal complaint successful specified cases. “By the clip the substance reaches trial, families whitethorn person reached an understanding, and the girls often retract their statements oregon garbage to marque incriminating allegations.”

From the outset, Nithya insisted to the constabulary that she loved Rajesh and had near location of her ain accord. “I pleaded with the constabulary to driblet the charges,” she says. “I told them my parents had filed the lawsuit due to the fact that they opposed our inter-caste relationship. But they refused to judge me.” Her regard drops to the level arsenic she continues. “One of the officers said I had disgraced my family,” she says. “That I had chosen a lad implicit them.”

R.K. Vij, a erstwhile Director General of Police, Chhattisgarh, who writes connected the Act, says that adjacent erstwhile constabulary officers recognise that a ailment stems from parental absorption to a consensual teen relationship, their hands are often tied by the law.

After she refused to instrumentality to her parents, Nithya was placed successful a Children’s Home pursuant to an bid of the Child Welfare Committee. “I mislaid an full world year,” she says. “It felt similar my beingness had been enactment connected hold.” The months that followed, she recalls, were marked by anxiousness and uncertainty. “I kept asking myself however loving idiosyncratic had led maine here. ”

Nearly 5 years aft she walked retired of her location successful defiance, the proceedings tribunal acquitted Rajesh, holding that the prosecution had failed to found the charges against him. “It felt similar each supplication I had whispered successful those years had been heard,” she says, unclasping her fingers slowly. Now enrolled successful an undergraduate people and surviving with Rajesh’s parents, Nithya says the instrumentality indispensable alteration truthful that others are not made to endure what she did. “There should beryllium exceptions made for adolescents who are simply falling successful love.”

Nipun Saxena, a Delhi-based advocator who has filed a nationalist involvement petition earlier the Supreme Court seeking to little the property of consent to 16, says that criminalising consensual romanticist relationships infringes the constitutionally guaranteed intersexual autonomy of adolescents. “For implicit 70 years, the property of consent was 16. It was raised to 18 with the enactment of the POCSO Act successful 2012. The pursuing year, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, retained the property of consent astatine 18. Both changes were introduced without meaningful nationalist deliberation,” helium says.

He cautions, however, that a close-in-age objection fails to code the inherent harm of criminalising normative teen intersexual behaviour and risks arbitrary outcomes. “In practice, it is apt to payment lone those with the resources to navigate the justness system, leaving astir adolescents — peculiarly those from poorer oregon marginalised backgrounds — susceptible to prosecution,” helium adds. “It besides overlooks the socio-cultural world successful India, wherever property disparities of 5 to 7 years are routinely normalised successful relationships and marriages.”

An unforgiving system

Reena was 16 erstwhile the scaffolding of her sheltered beingness began to travel undone. For 2 years, she had been successful a narration with a classmate astatine her schoolhouse successful Delhi. “I loved him, and we were physically intimate,” she recalls. “But erstwhile I missed my period, I was terrified.”

Soon after, she mustered the courageousness to instrumentality a gestation trial astatine home. With the bath doorway bolted and her ears straining for the faintest dependable of footsteps successful the hallway, she waited. When her eyes yet dropped to the strip, 2 airy lines had surfaced — confirming her worst fears.

Raised successful a blimpish household, she knew confiding successful her parents would not beryllium met with compassion. “If I had told them, I would person been beaten and pulled retired of school,” she says.

She had not anticipated however rapidly she would find herself shouldering the situation alone. “When I shared the quality with my partner, helium ended the narration astir immediately. I was shattered,” she recalls, her dependable trembling. With the uneasy cognition that clip was moving against her, she walked to a infirmary adjacent her location and asked to spot a gynaecologist.

The quiescent refuge she had hoped for eluded her astir astatine once. “As soon arsenic I told her I was pregnant, she asked however aged I was,” she says. “I said I was 18, but she did not judge me.” The questioning continued. “Then she asked for my individuality proof, and that is erstwhile I yet confessed that I was a minor.”

What followed, she says, drained the aerial from the room. The doc informed her that she was legally obligated nether POCSO to notify the police. “I kept telling her it was consensual.” She pauses, her dependable thinning astatine the memory. “I couldn’t halt crying. I begged her not to telephone the police.”

Hours passed successful hopeless appeals earlier the doc yet agreed not to pass the authorities. She declined, however, to assistance Reena terminate the pregnancy.

Section 19 of POCSO obligates radical oregon institutions with cognition oregon apprehension of the committee of an offence nether the Act to study it to instrumentality enforcement authorities. Failure to bash truthful is punishable with imprisonment of up to six months, a fine, oregon both. If the caput of an instauration fails to report, the punishment whitethorn widen to 1 year’s imprisonment on with a fine.

The reporting mandate restricts adolescents’ confidential entree to indispensable intersexual and reproductive healthcare, says Shruthi. “It risks disenfranchising young girls who are often successful urgent request of aesculapian attention, peculiarly erstwhile complications originate successful teenage pregnancies. Our probe shows that erstwhile ceremonial healthcare becomes inaccessible, minors are forced to edifice to unsafe and unscientific termination practices,” she adds, citing a lawsuit successful Kerala, wherever an teen attempted to springiness commencement aft watching a YouTube video.

For Reena, navigating an unforgiving healthcare strategy had lone conscionable begun. Acutely alert that she could not find her mode done it alone, she turned to the sister of a classmate — a 29-year-old gynaecologist past practising successful the United States.

“She enactment maine successful interaction with a backstage termination session successful Delhi that was consenting to behaviour a discreet sonography and erase each records to support my privateness and guarantee thing reached the police,” she says. “But it came astatine an exorbitant outgo — ₹60,000 for the sonography alone, isolated from the outgo of the abortion.” She grows quiet, her fingers knotting the borderline of her dupatta. “I didn’t person a fraction of that amount. Without her, I don’t cognize what I would person done.”

The sonography revealed that she was 9 weeks large — good wrong the 24-week statutory bounds nether the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971. The doc astatine the session gave her the medicines to terminate the pregnancy.

Five years on, she says overmuch of that time remains a blur, its details clouded by however intimidating and traumatic the acquisition was. “The doc asked maine however galore boyfriends I had,” she says, drafting a dilatory breath. “He made it dependable similar this was the terms I had to wage for my choices — arsenic if I had someway invited it upon myself.” In the days that followed, she endured dense bleeding and waves of excruciating pain. “I told my parents I had indigestion, that my tummy was hurting,” she recalls. “I someway managed to fell the information from them.”

Now a second-year undergraduate student, Reena says it is the crushing isolation that she remembers astir vividly. “I had to transportation connected arsenic if thing had happened,” she says. Her regard drops, the words thinning to a whisper. “But it changed me. I inactive transportation the scars.”

Recognising the concerns surrounding the reporting mandate, the Supreme Court successful September 2022 tempered its exertion successful cases involving consensual relationships betwixt adolescents. The tribunal held that registered aesculapian practitioners request not disclose a minor’s individuality oregon idiosyncratic details portion reporting specified cases to the police, if the insignificant oregon their guardian requests confidentiality.

Although well-intentioned, the implementation of the ruling remains fraught with applicable challenges, says Saxena. He points to the deficiency of clarity connected however a doc is expected to find whether a narration was consensual, and whether specified an appraisal would remainder solely connected the minor’s account.

“Even if a doc files an anonymous report, the constabulary volition inactive beryllium required to registry an FIR, which volition inevitably grounds the minor’s idiosyncratic details. Further, portion the tribunal extends this exemption to ‘adolescents’, it does not specify the term, perchance opening a Pandora’s container of litigation implicit its interpretation,” helium adds.

Devlina Lahiri, a Kolkata-based objective psychologist, says mandatory reporting norms are astatine likelihood with aesculapian ethics, arsenic they undermine confidentiality and informed consent. “We often look ethical dilemmas erstwhile required to study specified cases to the police, peculiarly wherever it is evident that the narration was consensual,” she says. “In galore instances, reporting whitethorn not service the champion interests of the child. It tin weaken spot and adversely impact therapeutic outcomes.”

Criminalising normative sexuality

Akhil was successful Class XI erstwhile helium began dating Alisha, who was a twelvemonth inferior to him astatine a schoolhouse successful Lucknow. “We had akin interests and connected immediately,” helium says with a wan smile. “I was 16, and she was 15 — conscionable a twelvemonth apart. Back then, it felt inconsequential.”

Two years later, Akhil moved to Delhi for college, having conscionable turned 18. Around the aforesaid time, a adjacent person recovered himself facing charges nether POCSO aft his partner’s parents, who opposed their inter-caste relationship, filed a transgression complaint. “The incidental terrified me,” helium says. “I began to consciousness profoundly conflicted. She was inactive a insignificant successful the eyes of the law. I couldn’t shingle the thought that our intimacy could beryllium treated arsenic a crime.”

Within months, helium ended the relationship. “I broke it disconnected adjacent though I didn’t privation to,” helium admits. “I felt similar a coward for choosing caution implicit love.”

Experiences specified arsenic his, Lahiri says, item the request to reconsider the broad criminalisation of normative teen sexuality. “Sexual exploration is an integral portion of teen development. It is important to make supportive and enabling environments wherever adolescents person entree to age-appropriate sexuality acquisition and beingness skills. This equips them to recognise exploitative relationships and crook to trusted adults erstwhile thing goes wrong,” she adds.

(All names of minors person been changed to support their identities.)

aaratrika.bhaumik@thehindu.co.in