In the hushed halls of family courts and juvenile boards all over India, a highly charged legal case is playing out, one where the letter of the law confronts the intricacies of human relationships. At its core is the POCSO Act, a seminal law recruited to protect children against sexual assault. Yet an increasing number of voices, judges, legal professionals, and parents alike, are now sounding an alarm: When mutually acceptable relationships between teenagers are criminalized under POCSO, are we protecting children or punishing them?
The Legal groundwork: What Does the Law Say?
The POCSO Act also explains a child as anyone who is under the age of 18 and criminalizes any sexual act involving them, regardless of consent. Section 4 of the Act criminalizes perceptive “intimate onslaught, and even acts like touching with sexual desire are covered under Sections 7 and 8. As the age of consent is 18 in India, even consensual relationships between two minors or between a minor and someone who is barely above 18 are considered criminal activity.
Additionally, under Section 375 of the IPC, all copulation with a girl under 18 is authorized rape, regardless of whether she agrees or not. The Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 provides some protection for child offenders, but it does not displace the absolute criminalisation under POCSO.
The Ground Reality: Love on Trial
In the past few years, India has seen a rise in the number of instances in which young couples typically from impoverished or marginalized communities get caught up in criminal cases merely for having consensual relationships. A 19-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl become an “accused” overnight. Families, typically disapproving of the match because of caste, religion, or social class, register complaints under POCSO. Police, constrained by law, arrest the boy, and the girl is now the “victim” of the law even if she protests otherwise.
In most such cases, the parents file the case, rather than the girl herself. This abuse of POCSO by parents is not isolated. In Sabari v. Inspector of Police (2019), the Madras High Court made a point to mention that a considerable majority of POCSO cases were constituted on the basis of romantic relationships among adolescents.
The outcome? Young lives are ruined. Charged boys find themselves in jail for months or even years before being brought to trial. Many are pushed out of school or college, their criminal charges following them for years. Girls also pay the price — identified as victims or sent to shelter homes without their consent.
Judicial Responses: Winds of Change
In spite of the extremity of the statute, however, some courts have started resisting its blanket application. A path-breaking step was taken by the Allahabad High Court in Rohit Kumar v. State of U.P. (2023), when it released on bail a 19-year-old boy who had been involved in a consensual relationship with a 17-year-old girl, emphasizing that criminal law should not enter into matters relating to romantic affairs between teenagers who are close in age.
Likewise, the Delhi High Court, in a number of bail cases, has recognized that the aim of POCSO was not to punish “consensual romantic activity” of teenagers but to deal with actual sexual abuse and exploitation.
Certain courts have also made use of the “Romeo-Juliet clause,” named after the feature in other nations such as the U.S., which provides legal immunity when both are close in age — typically up to a 2–3 year age gap. While India does not have a statutory equivalent, courts have suggested to legislatures that they provide for such a clause to save consensual teenage relationships from criminal prosecution.
The Emotional and Social Cost
The legal cost of indiscriminate application of POCSO is not only legal — it’s deeply emotional. Picture a 16-year-old girl ruthlessly torn away from her boyfriend, thrown into a shelter home, and forced to give evidence against a man she loves or a 20-year-old boy branded as a sexual offender for a relationship that was the product of love, not force.
In rural India, the cases are especially cruel. Oftentimes, it’s not only the law, but societal honour, shame, and patriarchy that join hands against young lovers. POCSO is used as an instrument of moral policing. Ironically, rather than safeguarding the girl child, it takes away her agency and turns her into an inert victim even when she had herself opted for the relationship.
Additionally, legal counsel and counselling arrangements are inadequately developed. Juvenile Justice Boards and courts of trial are usually not well-positioned to address the psychological subtleties of such cases. Attorneys, with an urgent need to secure bail or acquittal, hardly urge a comprehensive settlement.
Some suggestions catching on among legal experts and commissions include:
1. Incorporating a “close-in-age” exception — permitting consensual relationships between teenagers who are not more than 2–3 years different in age.
2. Assuring gender-neutrality in application — that both boys and girls receive the same legal protection and liability.
3. Compulsory psychological counselling and mediation for all concerned parties in cases of adolescent relationship cases prior to prosecution.
4. Misuse of POCSO by parents should be dissuaded by tighter scrutiny of complaints and greater discretion at the stage of FIR registration.
5. Training for police, judges, and child welfare officials to handle consensual relationship cases sensitively without falling back on criminalisation.
Conclusion: Are We Listening to Our Youth?
In the era of social media, mobile phones, and adolescence growing faster, love occurs early and frequently. Society might wriggle in embarrassment, but the law cannot ignore reality. POCSO as it stands today does not just criminalise sexual abuse — it criminalises young love.
As courts gradually come to this reality, the baton now shifts to policymakers. The goal should be unambiguous: safeguard children from predators, not criminalize them for probing affection, identity, and emotion.
It is time to rethink protection — not as control, but as empowerment. Because not all teen love stories are a crime. Some are merely the first chapters of coming of age.
