Madras HC’s decision to amend consensual sex after 16 years from POCSO Act was welcomed by NGOs.
Protection of Children from sexual offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 gives 10 years of rigorous imprisonment to the accused. The Madras HC suggested to amendment in POCSO terming that a girl above 16 years was not a child and consensual sex if undergone by her would not come under offence of the POCSO Act. The observation was made by Justice B. Parthiban while acquitting a boy convicted under the same.
“The Act can be amended to the effect that the age of the offender ought not to be more than five years or so than the consensual victim girl of 16 years or more. So that the impressionable age of the victim girl cannot be taken advantage of by a person who is much older and crossed the age of presumable infatuation or innocence,” read the judgement according report in Livelaw.
“The accused in these cases, once convicted of sexual exploitation under the criminal justice system, suffer multiple counts of torture and violence by the system, harms them irreparably. This was never the intent of the POCSO Act and the High Court’s suggestion to recognise that consensual sex between adolescents should not be criminalised will trigger some recourse too the innocents,’’ said Mr. Rammohan, secretary, Help Organisation (The Hindu reports).