Recently, the Bombay High Court heard a plea by a 29-year-old man seeking to quash a rape case registered against him after his marriage to a minor girl, with whom he now has a child. The man argued that the relationship was consensual and that the marriage was registered once she turned 18.
The Nagpur bench, comprising Justice Urmila Joshi Phalke and Justice Nandesh Deshpande, noted that the FIR was filed by Akola police under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act POCSO Act, and the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act. The man and his family members were booked after the girl, who was 17 at the time, was found to have been sexually assaulted and later married off to him.
According to the prosecution, the girl delivered a child this year, and her marriage was performed in accordance with Muslim rites even though she was below 18 years of age. The accused, aged 27 at the time, maintained that he should not be prosecuted as punishing him would affect the victim and their child’s future.
The High Court, however, observed that the purpose of the POCSO Act is to protect all children below 18 from sexual exploitation, making factual consent irrelevant in such cases. It said that marriage and childbirth cannot erase the illegality of the acts committed and refused to quash the FIR.
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