Under POCSO, consent on trial

In a modest two-bedroom apartment in a quiet residential neighbourhood in Karnataka, a framed photograph of a couple locked in an embrace hangs on a wall. Seated below it, Nithya, 20, speaks with composure: “At 16, I didn’t know falling in love would come at a price,” she says.

She met Rajesh when she was still in school. He was four years older. His family had recently moved into the neighbourhood, renting a house a few blocks away. “As clichéd as it sounds, it was love at first sight,” she recalls, a faint smile flickering across her face.

But her parents opposed the relationship from the moment they found out. “He belonged to a different caste. It wasn’t something they could look past,” she says. As a child, she had been discouraged from even befriending children from other castes. “So I expected resistance,” she adds. “But I was naïve enough to believe they would eventually relent.”

When she refused to end the relationship, punishment followed. “I would be beaten for days at a stretch,” she says, her shoulders stiffening at the memory. “My mother would lock me in my room. Sometimes I wasn’t even given food.” She had no way of reaching Rajesh. “But what kept me going,” she says quietly, “was my love for him.”

Eventually, on a cold December morning in 2021, when she was still 16, she quietly slipped out of the house — an act of defiance that would irreversibly alter the course of their lives. She told her parents she was leaving for tuition. Instead, she borrowed a friend’s phone and dialled Rajesh’s number. “I told him I was coming,” she recalls. “Then we left together and took shelter at his relative’s house.”

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

Law and consequence

Enacted as a dedicated law to combat child sexual abuse, POCSO defines a “child” as any person below the age of 18 and criminalises all sexual acts involving them. As a result, even consensual, non-exploitative sexual relationships between adolescents fall within its ambit, often attracting stringent mandatory minimum sentence of 7 years, which can extend to life imprisonment.

In January 2026, acknowledging the growing concerns over the law being invoked by disgruntled families to “settle scores”, the Supreme Court urged the Union government to consider introducing a “Romeo and Juliet” clause in the statute. Such a provision would exempt consensual sexual activity between adolescents close in age from prosecution for statutory rape, while preserving the Act’s central objective of protecting children from abuse. However, the court did not clarify what would qualify as ‘close-in-age’, leaving the scope of any such exception uncertain.

Shruthi Ramakrishnan, associate director of research at Enfold Proactive Health Trust, a non-profit organisation based in Bengaluru, assisting victims of child sexual abuse, points out that POCSO has had the unintended consequence of criminalising consensual romantic relationships between adolescents, upending young lives in the process.

“We are increasingly seeing the law being weaponised when families oppose inter-caste or inter-religious relationships,” she says. “Such cases typically begin with a missing persons complaint or a kidnapping charge after teenagers leave home against parental wishes. The boy, irrespective of his age, is almost invariably named as the accused, while the girl is treated as the victim, presumed incapable of consenting.”

A 2022 study by Enfold, analysing 7,064 POCSO judgments delivered between 2016 and 2020 by special courts in Assam, Maharashtra, and West Bengal, found that 24.3% of cases involved “romantic” relationships between consenting adolescents. In 80.2% of these cases, complaints were filed by the girl’s parents after she pursued a relationship against their wishes.

Shruthi Ramakrishnan, associate director of research at Enfold Proactive Health Trust
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangment

However, Ramakrishnan notes that many families file POCSO complaints without fully grasping what the process entails. “At the time of filing the complaint, they often simply want their daughters to return home or to cut off contact with the accused,” she says. “They do not realise that once an FIR is registered, it can culminate in a full-blown rape trial with lasting ramifications for everyone involved.”

This, she explains, contributes to the high acquittal rate in such cases. “By the time the matter reaches trial, families may have reached an understanding, and the girls often retract their statements or refuse to make incriminating allegations.”

From the outset, Nithya insisted to the police that she loved Rajesh and had left home of her own accord. “I pleaded with the police to drop the charges,” she says. “I told them my parents had filed the case because they opposed our inter-caste relationship. But they refused to believe me.” Her gaze drops to the floor as she continues. “One of the officers said I had disgraced my family,” she says. “That I had chosen a boy over them.”

R.K. Vij, a former Director General of Police, Chhattisgarh, who writes on the Act, says that even when police officers recognise that a complaint stems from parental opposition to a consensual adolescent relationship, their hands are often tied by the law.

After she refused to return to her parents, Nithya was placed in a Children’s Home pursuant to an order of the Child Welfare Committee. “I lost an entire academic year,” she says. “It felt like my life had been put on hold.” The months that followed, she recalls, were marked by anxiety and uncertainty. “I kept asking myself how loving someone had led me here. ”

Nearly five years after she walked out of her home in defiance, the trial court acquitted Rajesh, holding that the prosecution had failed to establish the charges against him. “It felt like every prayer I had whispered in those years had been heard,” she says, unclasping her fingers slowly. Now enrolled in an undergraduate course and living with Rajesh’s parents, Nithya says the law must change so that others are not made to endure what she did. “There should be exceptions made for adolescents who are simply falling in love.”

Nipun Saxena, a Delhi-based advocate who has filed a public interest petition before the Supreme Court seeking to lower the age of consent to 16, says that criminalising consensual romantic relationships infringes the constitutionally guaranteed sexual autonomy of adolescents. “For over 70 years, the age of consent was 16. It was raised to 18 with the enactment of the POCSO Act in 2012. The following year, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, retained the age of consent at 18. Both changes were introduced without meaningful public deliberation,” he says.

He cautions, however, that a close-in-age exception fails to address the inherent harm of criminalising normative adolescent sexual behaviour and risks arbitrary outcomes. “In practice, it is likely to benefit only those with the resources to navigate the justice system, leaving most adolescents — particularly those from poorer or marginalised backgrounds — vulnerable to prosecution,” he adds. “It also overlooks the socio-cultural reality in India, where age disparities of five to seven years are routinely normalised in relationships and marriages.”

Nipun Saxena, Delhi-based advocate
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

An unforgiving system

Reena was 16 when the scaffolding of her sheltered life began to come undone. For two years, she had been in a relationship with a classmate at her school in Delhi. “I loved him, and we were physically intimate,” she recalls. “But when I missed my period, I was terrified.”

Soon after, she mustered the courage to take a pregnancy test at home. With the bathroom door bolted and her ears straining for the faintest sound of footsteps in the hallway, she waited. When her eyes finally dropped to the strip, two pale lines had surfaced — confirming her worst fears.

Raised in a conservative household, she knew confiding in her parents would not be met with compassion. “If I had told them, I would have been beaten and pulled out of school,” she says.

She had not anticipated how quickly she would find herself shouldering the crisis alone. “When I shared the news with my partner, he ended the relationship almost immediately. I was shattered,” she recalls, her voice trembling. With the uneasy knowledge that time was working against her, she walked to a hospital near her home and asked to see a gynaecologist.

The quiet refuge she had hoped for eluded her almost at once. “As soon as I told her I was pregnant, she asked how old I was,” she says. “I said I was 18, but she did not believe me.” The questioning continued. “Then she asked for my identity proof, and that is when I finally confessed that I was a minor.”

What followed, she says, drained the air from the room. The doctor informed her that she was legally obligated under POCSO to notify the police. “I kept telling her it was consensual.” She pauses, her voice thinning at the memory. “I couldn’t stop crying. I begged her not to call the police.”

Hours passed in desperate appeals before the doctor finally agreed not to inform the authorities. She declined, however, to help Reena terminate the pregnancy.

Section 19 of POCSO obligates people or institutions with knowledge or apprehension of the commission of an offence under the Act to report it to law enforcement authorities. Failure to do so is punishable with imprisonment of up to six months, a fine, or both. If the head of an institution fails to report, the punishment may extend to one year’s imprisonment along with a fine.

The reporting mandate restricts adolescents’ confidential access to essential sexual and reproductive healthcare, says Shruthi. “It risks disenfranchising young girls who are often in urgent need of medical attention, particularly when complications arise in teenage pregnancies. Our research shows that when formal healthcare becomes inaccessible, minors are forced to resort to unsafe and unscientific abortion practices,” she adds, citing a case in Kerala, where an adolescent attempted to give birth after watching a YouTube video.

For Reena, navigating an unforgiving healthcare system had only just begun. Acutely aware that she could not find her way through it alone, she turned to the sister of a classmate — a 29-year-old gynaecologist then practising in the United States.

“She put me in touch with a private abortion clinic in Delhi that was willing to conduct a discreet sonography and erase all records to protect my privacy and ensure nothing reached the police,” she says. “But it came at an exorbitant cost — ₹60,000 for the sonography alone, apart from the cost of the abortion.” She grows quiet, her fingers knotting the edge of her dupatta. “I didn’t have a fraction of that amount. Without her, I don’t know what I would have done.”

The sonography revealed that she was 9 weeks pregnant — well within the 24-week statutory limit under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971. The doctor at the clinic gave her the medicines to terminate the pregnancy.

Five years on, she says much of that day remains a blur, its details clouded by how intimidating and traumatic the experience was. “The doctor asked me how many boyfriends I had,” she says, drawing a slow breath. “He made it sound like this was the price I had to pay for my choices — as if I had somehow invited it upon myself.” In the days that followed, she endured heavy bleeding and waves of excruciating pain. “I told my parents I had indigestion, that my stomach was hurting,” she recalls. “I somehow managed to hide the truth from them.”

Now a second-year undergraduate student, Reena says it is the crushing isolation that she remembers most vividly. “I had to carry on as if nothing had happened,” she says. Her gaze drops, the words thinning to a whisper. “But it changed me. I still carry the scars.”

Recognising the concerns surrounding the reporting mandate, the Supreme Court in September 2022 tempered its application in cases involving consensual relationships between adolescents. The court held that registered medical practitioners need not disclose a minor’s identity or personal details while reporting such cases to the police, if the minor or their guardian requests confidentiality.

Although well-intentioned, the implementation of the ruling remains fraught with practical challenges, says Saxena. He points to the lack of clarity on how a doctor is expected to determine whether a relationship was consensual, and whether such an assessment would rest solely on the minor’s account.

“Even if a doctor files an anonymous report, the police will still be required to register an FIR, which will inevitably record the minor’s personal details. Further, while the court extends this exemption to ‘adolescents’, it does not define the term, potentially opening a Pandora’s box of litigation over its interpretation,” he adds.

Devlina Lahiri, a Kolkata-based clinical psychologist, says mandatory reporting norms are at odds with medical ethics, as they undermine confidentiality and informed consent. “We frequently face ethical dilemmas when required to report such cases to the police, particularly where it is evident that the relationship was consensual,” she says. “In many instances, reporting may not serve the best interests of the child. It can weaken trust and adversely affect therapeutic outcomes.”

Criminalising normative sexuality

Akhil was in Class XI when he began dating Alisha, who was a year junior to him at a school in Lucknow. “We had similar interests and connected immediately,” he says with a wan smile. “I was 16, and she was 15 — just a year apart. Back then, it felt inconsequential.”

Two years later, Akhil moved to Delhi for college, having just turned 18. Around the same time, a close friend found himself facing charges under POCSO after his partner’s parents, who opposed their inter-caste relationship, filed a criminal complaint. “The incident terrified me,” he says. “I began to feel deeply conflicted. She was still a minor in the eyes of the law. I couldn’t shake the thought that our intimacy could be treated as a crime.”

Within months, he ended the relationship. “I broke it off even though I didn’t want to,” he admits. “I felt like a coward for choosing caution over love.”

Experiences such as his, Lahiri says, highlight the need to reconsider the blanket criminalisation of normative adolescent sexuality. “Sexual exploration is an integral part of adolescent development. It is important to create supportive and enabling environments where adolescents have access to age-appropriate sexuality education and life skills. This equips them to recognise exploitative relationships and turn to trusted adults when something goes wrong,” she adds.

(All names of minors have been changed to protect their identities.)

aaratrika.bhaumik@thehindu.co.in