Cases involving under-age marriage reach Delhi courts through many doors: an elopement FIR by a girl’s parents, a habeas corpus petition, a bail application by a young husband, or a petition to annul a marriage solemnised years earlier. Three statutes govern the field — the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 (PCMA), the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO), and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 — and they answer different questions. Conflating them produces bad advice; separating them is the beginning of competent handling.
Three statutes, three questions
| Statute | Question it answers | Key provisions |
|---|---|---|
| PCMA, 2006 | Is the marriage valid, and who is punished for solemnising it? | Voidable marriages (Section 3); void categories (Section 12); punishment of adult male, solemnisers and promoters (Sections 9-11); injunctions (Section 13) |
| POCSO, 2012 | Were sexual offences committed against a person under 18? | Penetrative and aggravated penetrative sexual assault (Sections 3-6); no marital exception; consent of a minor immaterial |
| BNS, 2023 | General offences: rape (with the marital exception fixed at 18), kidnapping from guardianship, and allied counts | Sections 63-64 and following; Section 137 kidnapping provisions |
Validity: voidable by default, void in aggravation
The PCMA’s central design choice is protective rather than annihilating: the marriage of a “child” — a male under twenty-one or a female under eighteen — is voidable at the instance of the party who was the child, through a district court petition filed before the contracting child completes two years of majority. Annulment brings consequential orders: return of valuables, maintenance for the female petitioner until remarriage, and custody arrangements shaped by welfare. Section 12 then carves the void categories — marriages following kidnapping from lawful guardianship, compulsion, deceit, or trafficking of the minor — where no election is needed because the law refuses the marriage any effect. Injunction-breaching marriages are likewise void under the scheme. Advising a now-adult client on whether to petition for annulment, and within which window, is time-sensitive work; the two-year period is unforgiving.
Criminality: the POCSO overlay
Whatever the marriage’s civil status, POCSO applies on its own terms. The Act defines a child as any person below eighteen and admits no exception for marriage; a minor’s consent is immaterial. Sexual relations within an under-age marriage therefore constitute penetrative sexual assault, and where the parties are related by marriage the aggravated forms can be attracted. The historical mismatch with the IPC’s marital-rape exception — which once protected husbands of wives above fifteen — was resolved by the Supreme Court in 2017, reading the exception down to eighteen; the BNS now states the threshold as eighteen directly. The codes are aligned: under-age means under-age, married or not.
The adolescent-relationship reality
A large fraction of prosecutions in this field arise not from forced marriages but from elopements — relationships between an adolescent girl and a young man, criminalised by the age line and prosecuted at the family’s instance. Courts confront the tension case by case: at the bail stage, where the relationship’s consensual character and the accused’s age are weighed within the statutory framework; in quashing petitions after the parties have attained majority and married; and at sentencing, where minimum punishments constrain discretion. The law reform debate over an adolescent close-in-age exception continues, but as the statutes stand, counsel must advise on the law as written: the age of consent is eighteen, and marriage does not alter it.
Practical guidance
- Establish age first, properly: the statutory hierarchy of proof — matriculation certificate, birth certificate, then medical opinion — decides which regime applies, and ossification estimates carry error margins that courts treat accordingly.
- Separate the proceedings: annulment under PCMA is a civil petition before the district court; POCSO trial is before the Special Court; guardianship and habeas corpus issues have their own fora. Each has its own strategy and timeline.
- For families seeking to prevent a marriage: Section 13 injunctions and the Child Marriage Prohibition Officer are faster and safer than post-facto FIRs.
- For young couples and their advisers: understand the exposure candidly — the criminal law\'s application does not depend on the girl\'s statements of consent, and settlement does not dissolve a POCSO prosecution.
Practice note: These files demand more care with facts than with law. Dates of birth, school records, the chronology of the relationship and the marriage, and who approached which authority when — assembled precisely — determine everything from bail to the fate of the marriage. The statutes are strict; the record is where the case is made.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a child marriage void or valid?
Under the PCMA as it stands, a child marriage is generally voidable at the option of the party who was a child, by a petition filed within two years of attaining majority. It is void in aggravated situations the Act specifies — including where the minor was taken away from lawful guardianship, compelled or deceived into the marriage, or trafficked. Some states have amended the position, but the voidable-as-default scheme is the general law.
Does marriage make sexual relations with a minor wife lawful?
No. POCSO contains no marital exception: penetrative sexual assault on a person under eighteen is an offence regardless of marriage. The Supreme Court in 2017 read down the marital exception in the rape provision of the IPC insofar as it covered wives between fifteen and eighteen, and the BNS has since fixed the exception's threshold at eighteen, aligning the codes. Marriage is therefore no defence to either statute where the wife is a minor.
Who is punished for a child marriage itself?
The PCMA punishes an adult male who contracts a child marriage, and those who perform, conduct, direct, abet or promote it — parents and guardians included, though with the qualification the Act provides. The child is not punished. Injunctions to prevent threatened child marriages and the machinery of Child Marriage Prohibition Officers complete the scheme.
What happens in the common elopement scenario?
Where a girl under eighteen elopes and marries, the criminal law is engaged irrespective of her wishes: POCSO applies to sexual relations, kidnapping from guardianship provisions may be invoked, and the marriage is at least voidable. Courts dealing with such cases balance the statutory position against the realities of adolescent relationships — particularly at the bail stage and in quashing petitions — but no court can treat the marriage as a licence.