Two Birth Certificates, One Bail Plea: Age Disputes Cannot Be Settled at the Bail Stage

In Riya Fokir v. The State (Crl.O.P. No. 32399 of 2026, decided 10 November 2026), Justice N. Ramesh of the Madras High Court dismissed a second regular bail petition under Section 483 BNSS in a trafficking-and-prostitution prosecution to which Section 6 of the POCSO Act was added once the victim’s age was recorded as fifteen. The accused’s answer — a second Bangladeshi birth certificate said to show the victim was an adult — framed the question the Court declined to decide: whose document is true? That, the Court held, is what trials are for.

The case in one view

The prosecution’s case

The investigation concerns trafficking and forced prostitution. The victim’s age was recorded as fifteen, which transformed the case: Section 6 of the POCSO Act — aggravated penetrative sexual assault, carrying a minimum of twenty years — entered the array of charges. The victim’s statement under Section 183 BNSS implicated the petitioner specifically: arranging her passage, lodging her, and forcing her into prostitution. The record also contained the petitioner’s own admission that she travelled between Bangladesh and Kolkata procuring girls for spa establishments.

The defence’s document — and why it failed at this stage

The petitioner produced a second Bangladeshi birth certificate to contend the victim was an adult, which would strip the POCSO charge of its foundation. Justice Ramesh declined to adjudicate between the rival certificates, anchoring the refusal in the Supreme Court’s ruling in State of Uttar Pradesh v. Anurudh, 2026 INSC 47: the victim’s age is a matter of trial, not of bail. The logic is institutional. A bail court takes the prosecution record as it prima facie stands; it has neither the machinery nor the mandate to test the provenance of foreign documents, summon issuing authorities, or resolve genuineness. An accused who disputes age must do so where evidence is led.

The structure of the refusal

The practice point: age at the bail stage

Age disputes recur across POCSO bail practice, and the line the courts hold is consistent. The prosecution’s recorded age — from school records, municipal registers or ossification where documents fail — governs the prima facie view at bail. Defence material contesting it earns consideration at charge, in a juvenility-style inquiry where applicable, or at trial, but it rarely unlocks bail by itself. Counsel advising an accused in this position should calibrate accordingly: the realistic near-term objectives are expedition of the final report, bail before the Special Court once investigation closes, and meticulous preservation of the age-related documents — with certification and chain of custody — for the stage at which they can actually be weighed.