The Allahabad High Court observed that POCSO Act was never made to deal with the consensual romantic connections between teenagers as criminal offences.
The bench of Justice Krishan Pahal in his observation said that the aim of the act is to safeguard the children from sexual abuse, but unfortunately this is now been used as a tool to exploit children.
In its recent order the order said that POCSO was formulated to protect children under the age of 18 years from sexual exploitation. Nowadays more often than not it has become a tool for their exploitation.
The court however added that the Act was never meant to criminalise consensual romantic relationships between adolescents.
The Court said that the need of the hour suggests that whenever bail petition pertaining to POCSO cases come up in the courts, an emphasis should be laid on whether the relation ship in question was consensual or contested.
The court explained that consensual relationship are borne out of love and this should be kept in mind while granting bail as any wrong information can lead to suffering of a person for a simple reason of love.
The Court made the observation while granting bail to a man accused of kidnapping and luring away a girl, who was said to be 15 years of age as per her school certificates.
The counsel in the case had contended that his client was implicated on wrong pretext n the case. He added that there was no ossification test conducted on the girl to conclusively prove that she was a minor.
The lawyer further argued that her physical appearance suggested that she was older than 15 years.
The Court after noting that the applicant had no previous history of crime and has been detained in jail since May 2023, granted him bail.
The court added that considering the nature of the offence, the evidence on record and the victim-girl’s statement, the release of the accused on bail is reasonable