No immunity from Pocso FIR despite marrying survivor, having child: HC

NAGPUR: Holding that a minor’s consent for a carnal narration is “irrelevant” nether existent law, Nagpur seat of Bombay HC has refused to quash a lawsuit filed nether Pocso Act against a 29-year-old Washim antheral who joined a 17-year-old and fathered her child.

HC ruled Friday that the FIR cannot beryllium dismissed simply due to the fact that the miss joined the accused and aboriginal became a mother.Dismissing a plea by M A Beigh and 2 household members to acceptable speech the case, a part seat of Justices Urmila Joshi-Phalke and Nandesh Deshpande said: “Despite knowing the miss was a minor, helium commits an offence from the infinitesimal helium takes her distant from the ineligible custody of her parents. Merely due to the fact that the miss has fixed commencement to a child, the transgression enactment cannot beryllium brushed aside.”Beigh joined the miss connected June 2, 2024, erstwhile she was 17. She gave commencement to a babe lad successful May. Cops registered the lawsuit aft learning of the childbirth and the mother’s age.Now an adult, the subsister supported the accused successful court, stating their narration was consensual and the matrimony was approved by some families. Her lawyer urged the tribunal to dainty it arsenic an “exceptional case,” arguing prosecution would harm some parent and child.

HC, however, saidthe accused “ought to person waited till the miss attained 18 years of age,” adding that taking a insignificant from her parents’ lawful custody is an offence careless of affection oregon marriage.The judges noted SC is examining whether consensual teen relationships merit antithetic attraction nether the Pocso Act, but said that until Parliament amends the law, courts indispensable travel it. It besides cited govt’s absorption to lowering property of consent, informing it would “reintroduce the precise mischief the instrumentality was enacted to prevent”.