Marriage does not bar POCSO prosecution if wife is under 18, says Kerala HC
The Kerala High Court ruled that marriage does not exempt a man from prosecution under the POCSO Act if the survivor is under 18. The court dismissed a petition to quash charges against a man who claimed his marriage to a 17-year-old under Islamic rites protected him from rape and kidnapping charges.
Why it matters
This ruling reinforces the legal primacy of the POCSO Act over personal religious laws regarding the age of consent, protecting minors from sexual exploitation.
A person can be prosecuted for offences under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO Act), regardless of whether the survivor is the accused’s wife, the Kerala High Court has held.
Justice Jobin Sebastian dismissed the petition filed by the accused seeking to quash criminal proceedings against him on charges of kidnapping, rape, repeated sexual assault on a child, and storage of pornographic content involving a child under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860, and the POCSO Act.
The accused contended that he had married the complainant when she was 17 years and one month old in accordance with Islamic religious rites. He relied on the exception to rape provided under the IPC, citing that intercourse by a man with his own wife who was under 15 years of age was not rape.
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