New Delhi, Aug 26: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a plea by an NGO against any reduction in the age of consent, saying it jeopardises the interest of a large number of child victims of sexual abuse, especially girls. A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Mishra issued notice to the Centre and tagged the plea of ‘Bachpan Bachao Andolan’ with a pending petition filed by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).
NCPCR had challenged last year’s order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court which said that a minor Muslim girl can marry a person of her choice.
The apex court on Friday sought the Centre’s response on the issue. The NGO’s plea has also sought a directive to the courts to refrain from making observations regarding the minor victim’s casual relationship and promiscuous attitude while dealing with the criminal proceedings under the POCSO Act.
It has said that the dissemination of misinterpreted information pertaining to POCSO cases (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012) as “elopement and romantic relationships” has undermined the purpose of the stringent legislation. It also challenged the circular issued on December 3, 2022 by the office of the Director General of Police, Tamil Nadu directing the police officials to not show haste in effecting an arrest of the accused in mutual romantic cases, alleging thereby most of them fell category of “mutual romantic relationships”. It also highlighted that despite official facts and figures, various NGOs, governments, and/or law enforcement authorities have relied on flawed methodologies and wrongly interpreted that 60 to 70 percent of POCSO cases are pertaining to consenting minors and fall under the category of “consensual romantic relationship” between teenagers that often get criminalised. It said that the alleged figure of 60-70 per cent is incorrect since the total number of cases between 16-18 years is approximately 30 per cent of the total POCSO cases in the country.
The organisation has further claimed that a survey conducted by support persons reveals that only 13 per cent of the total POCSO Cases are said to be consensual in nature.
On October 17 last year, the top court agreed to examine a plea of the NCPCR challenging the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s June 13, 2022 order that a minor Muslim girl can marry a person of her choice. (PTI)