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A special leave petition has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking compounding of POCSO offences in case of teenage relationships.

Filed by the advocate for the petitioner Rahul Shyam Bhandari, the plea is directed against the impugned order/judgment dated 16.03.2021 passed by the High Court in the case of Maruthupandi v. State dismissing the miscellaneous petition filed under section 482 and 391 of Cr.P.C. thereby seeking to take additional evidence of the victim by recording her deposition before the High court and to mark the affidavit filed by the victim through her in the pending criminal appeal.

“The facts leading to filing of the present petition is that in the beginning, a criminal case under section 417, 376 and 312 of IPC and under Section 5(L) read with section 6 of the Protection of children from Sexual offences (PoCSo) Act, 2012, was registered as against the Petitioner herein. The date of incident was alleged to be of year 2014. At the time of the alleged offence, the victim/Complainant was stated to be around l7 years of age as the Victim's date of birth is 24.06.1997. However , the complaint was lodged after a delay of almost I year i.e., in year 2015 and by that time, the Complainant had turned around l7 years 10 months and 14 days old and the Petitioner turned 18 years old.” – states the appeal.

The main issue which has been raised by the petitioner is whether an adolescent boy, who enters into a relationship with a girl who is less than 18 years of age, can be punished for the offence of sexual assault under the POCSO Act.

The Petitioner has challenged the Madras High Court's order refusing permission to compound the offences alleged against him, as being contrary to a decision rendered by another coordinate Bench of the Madras High Court in Vijaylakshmi & Anr. v. State wherein Justice Anand observed that the POCSO Act does not intend to bring within its scope cases involving adolescent teenagers in romantic relationships.

Similarly, another coordinate bench of the Mardra High Court comprised of Justice V. Parthiban in Sabari v. Inspector of Police wherein he had discussed in detail about the cases in which persons of the age group of 16 to 18 years are involved in love affairs and how in some cases ultimately end up in a criminal case booked for an offence under the POSCO Act and observed that,

“When the girl below 18 years is involved in a relationship with the teen age boy or little over the teen age, it is always a question mark as to how such relationship could be defined, though such relationship would be the result of mutual innocence and biological attraction. Such relationship cannot be construed as an unnatural one or alien to between relationship of opposite sexes. But in such cases where the age of the girl is below 18 years, even though she was capable of giving consent for relationship, being mentally matured, unfortunately, the provisions of the POCSO Act get attracted if such relationship transcends beyond platonic limits, attracting strong arm of law sanctioned by the provisions of POCSO Act, catching up with the so called offender of sexual assault, warranting a severe imprisonment of 7/10 years.”

 

 “Petitioner and the Victim both were studying in the school at that time, they fell in love and the love affair continued for some time. And the petitioner on the pretext of marrying her, had developed physical relationship with victim on several occasions thereafter when the victim c insisted him to marry, the petitioner had refused on the pretext that his parents were contemplating for their son's marriage with another girl who may give a huge dowry.”
- Plea narrates the facts of the case as put forth by the prosecution

On the other hand the petitioner contends that, “the petitioner and the complainant were in love with each other for more than two years. There was no force in the relationship and the relationship was a consensual affair. Further the petitioner has never refused to marry the complainant but at that point of time, petitioner wanted to pursue his studies and hence there was no denial of marriage on the pretext of dowry or anything such. Nevertheless, even otherwise the allegation of the complainant at that time could not have been treated to be a case of sexual assault under POCSO Act in view of the fact that there was no sexual assault as it involved consensus on both sides and it could have been maximum considered a case of love affair going sour.”

Thereafter, during the trial, the complainant filed a petition under Section 311 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) praying that she be examined before the trial court. During the examination, she stated that she was not forced to engage in sexual relations with the petitioner, and that her earlier allegations were made at the behest of the State. She further stated that she wanted to live happily with the petitioner and had been in a live-in relationship with him.

However, in April 2019, the trial court dismissed the petition and refused to take this evidence of the complainant on record, on the ground that she should have filed the petition through the public prosecutor.

The petitioner (Maruthupandi) was convicted us 5(l) read with s 6 of POCSO Act and sentenced him to undergo l0 years of Rigorous Imprisonment and to pay a fine of Rs. 5000/- and compensation of Rs. One Lakh within one month to the victim. At the same time, he was acquitted for the offence under section 312,376, 417 of II)C and section 4 of Women Harassment Act.

The aggrieved petitioner approached the High Court, which initially suspended the sentence in June 2019. During the course of proceedings, in February (08.02.2021) this year, the complainant filed an affidavit in support of the petitioner’s appeal, stating that she had been in a live-in relationship with the petitioner for the last four years and that they have no grievance against each other. She further stated that the past sexual relations were consensual and that the couple intended to get married.The petitioner also filed an additional affidavit, praying that the victim’s evidence be taken on record. However, in its March 16 order, the High Court dismissed the petitioner’s application and refused to take the victim’s additional evidence on record.

Thus, there is a need for amendments to the POCSO Act, the Court had held in that case that urged the legislature to take into consideration cases of adolescents involved in consensual relationships and bring necessary changes to the Act.

"It is high time that the legislature takes into consideration cases of this nature involving adolescents involved in relationships and swiftly bring in necessary amendments under the Act. The legislature has to keep pace with the changing societal needs and bring about necessary changes in law and more particularly in a stringent law such as the POCSO Act," 

Therefore, the petitioner has filed the present petition and prayed that the 16th March,2021 order of the High Court be set aside.

Case tilte : MARUTHUPANDI VS THE STATE, REPRESENTED BY INSPECTOR OF POLICE, 2021

Law point : section 5(1)read with section 6 Section and  40 of POSCO Act