Decriminalising adolescent relationships under POCSO

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.

- Namita Bhandare

The court was urging the government to consider adding a “Romeo-Juliet clause” to the Protection of Children from Child Sexual Offences (POCSO) law where the offence 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 criminalise 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 judgement 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.