Changing age of consent could be regressive: Centre

“Any departure from this standard, even in the name of reform or adolescent autonomy, would amount to rolling back decades of progress in child protection law,” the Centre said, adding that “introducing a legislative close-in-age exception or reducing the age of consent would irrevocably dilute the statutory presumption of vulnerability that lies at the heart of child protection law.”

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The Centre's stand assumes significance amid a deluge of cases where courts are increasingly confronted with situations involving consensual relationships between adolescents, often leading to the prosecution of young boys under POCSO, even when the alleged victim does not complain of coercion or exploitation.

The Centre's response comes in the wake of concerns raised by senior advocate Indira Jaising, who, in her capacity as amicus curiae, had submitted earlier this year that mandatory reporting of all sexual activity involving minors, even consensual encounters between adolescents, was leading to the criminalisation of young people and severely compromising the health rights, privacy, and autonomy of adolescent girls.

Jaising and senior advocate Sidharth Luthra are assisting the top court in a 2012 public interest litigation filed by advocate Nipun Saxena. The matter is expected to be taken up again on Thursday.

Emphasising the deliberate and coherent statutory policy behind setting 18 as the age of consent, the Centre, however, stated: “The legislative determination to fix the age of consent at eighteen years, and to treat all sexual activities with a person below that age as an offence irrespective of purported consent, is a product of a deliberate, well-considered and coherent statutory policy.”