What happens when the victim herself asks the court to end a POCSO prosecution? In CRM(M) No. 783/2026, decided on 28 October 2026, Justice Yash Paul Bourney of the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh at Srinagar dismissed a petition under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 filed by a sixteen-year-old victim seeking quashing of the chargesheet against the man she had married by nikah and with whom she had a child. The judgment is a careful restatement of two settled but frequently tested propositions: below the age of consent, consent is immaterial, and sympathy operates at the stage of bail and sentence, not at the stage of prosecution.
The facts, briefly
In October 2025, a hospital doctor reported that a minor had delivered a baby, leading to FIR No. 72/2025 at Police Station Shalteng, Srinagar. The accused, a distant relative of the girl, was arrested on 7 October 2025. DNA testing confirmed he was the biological father of the newborn; the victim was sixteen years, three months and eleven days old at delivery. A chargesheet under Section 64 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 and Sections 3 and 4 of the POCSO Act, 2012 was filed on 3 December 2025, and charges were framed on 28 September 2026.
The victim then moved the High Court under Section 528 BNSS — the successor to Section 482 CrPC — seeking quashing of the chargesheet. She asserted that the relationship was consensual, that a nikah had been performed, and that she wished to live with the accused as his wife. The State opposed: a minor had no locus to invoke the extraordinary jurisdiction without a guardian, disputed facts could not be resolved in a quashing petition, and the consent of a child is no consent in law.
Three holdings
The reasoning behind the line
POCSO is built on a legislative judgment that persons under eighteen cannot give legally operative consent to sexual activity. Once the age is established, the offence under Sections 3 and 4 is complete irrespective of the dynamics between the parties; here, the DNA report and the medical record left little room for factual dispute. Courts exercising inherent powers can quash proceedings that are an abuse of process, but a prosecution squarely supported by scientific evidence, filed and charged, is the opposite of an abuse — it is the statute operating as designed.
The judgment is also candid about the human cost. It noticed the growing judicial commentary, including from the Supreme Court, on the criminalisation of adolescent relationships and the calls for a legislative Romeo-Juliet exception. But it drew the constitutional boundary precisely: the plea for reform is addressed to Parliament, and until the statute changes, a High Court cannot achieve by quashing what the legislature has declined to enact.
The locus holding deserves separate attention from practitioners. Petitions on behalf of minors — whether victims or accused — must be instituted through a guardian or next friend. A petition filed by a minor alone risks dismissal without ever reaching the merits, whatever its substantive strength.
Where sympathy still operates
The takeaway for Delhi practice
Delhi courts see the same pattern with regularity: an adolescent relationship, an FIR set in motion by a mandatory report, and later attempts — often by the victim or her family — to fold the prosecution into a marriage. The consistent judicial answer, in Delhi as in Srinagar, is that POCSO offences are not compoundable and cannot be settled or married away, while bail and sentencing remain the lawful outlets for genuinely mitigating circumstances. Families navigating such cases need advice that distinguishes clearly between what a court may do and what it must refuse, before irreversible procedural choices are made.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a POCSO case be quashed because the victim says the relationship was consensual?
No. Under the POCSO Act the age of consent is eighteen, and the purported consent of a child is legally immaterial. The High Court held that the consensual character of the relationship could not erase the offence under Section 64 of the BNS and Sections 3 and 4 of the POCSO Act, especially where the accused knew the victim's age and DNA evidence established paternity of the child born to her.
Does marriage between the accused and the victim end the prosecution?
No. A nikah or other marriage performed with a minor does not legitimise the offence, and the court treated the marriage, the pregnancy and the families' acceptance as mitigating factors at best — matters that may weigh in a bail application, but not reasons to quash the chargesheet after charges have been framed.
Why was the victim's own petition held not maintainable?
Because she was still a minor and had approached the court without a guardian or next friend. The court held that a minor is not competent to invoke the extraordinary inherent jurisdiction on her own, which furnished an independent ground of dismissal apart from the merits.
Do courts recognise the hardship POCSO causes in adolescent relationships?
The judgment noticed the Supreme Court's observations on the need for legislative attention to adolescent relationships, sometimes called a Romeo-Juliet exception, but applied the statute as it stands: until Parliament amends the law, courts cannot carve consensual adolescent relationships out of POCSO by quashing prosecutions.