Courts Cannot Acquit Proven POCSO Offender Over 'Romantic Relationship': Supreme Court Restores Conviction, Says Judges Must Not Preach

A Special Court under the POCSO Act convicted a man of about twenty-five of aggravated penetrative sexual assault, rape and kidnapping of a fourteen-year-old girl, who later gave birth to his child, and sentenced him to twenty years' rigorous imprisonment (paras 1-2, 6). Her mother had lodged the FIR, but the girl, abandoned by her parents, went on living with him (paras 2, 24). The Calcutta High Court acquitted him of kidnapping and, invoking Article 226 and Section 482 CrPC, set aside the rest of the conviction while commenting on adolescent sexuality and law reform (paras 3, 17).

A judgment on appeal must set out the facts, evidence and reasons, and a judge must decide, not preach or air personal opinions (paras 13-14). The High Court's notions of 'non-exploitative' sexual acts and 'older adolescents' had no basis when the girl was fourteen and the accused twenty-five (paras 16-17). Under 'sixthly' in Section 375 IPC, intercourse with a girl under eighteen is rape with or without consent, so a romantic relationship is irrelevant and courts cannot commit violence against the law (para 19). As pregnancy followed, the offence was aggravated penetrative sexual assault under Section 6 of the POCSO Act (para 10). A High Court cannot use Article 226 or Section 482 CrPC to acquit an accused whose guilt is proved, and even a settlement could not have justified quashing (paras 21, 23). Nothing on record showed that the police reported the case to the Child Welfare Committee under Section 19(6) of the POCSO Act, and the Juvenile Justice Act's care and rehabilitation machinery was overlooked entirely (paras 27, 35-36). That failure violates the victim's rights under Article 21 (para 37).