Madras High Court decides to quash, en masse, all criminal cases against minor boys for consensual relationships with minor girls

The Madras High Court has decided to embark on an exercise of quashing, en masse, all criminal cases registered against minor boys for having consensual relationships with, or having eloped with minor girls, if it finds that these cases are against the interest and future of the children involved, besides being an abuse of the process of court or an abuse of the process of law.

The Madras High Court has decided to embark on an exercise of quashing, en masse, all criminal cases registered against minor boys for having consensual relationships with, or having eloped with minor girls, if it finds that these cases are against the interest and future of the children involved, besides being an abuse of the process of court or an abuse of the process of law.

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Justices N. Anand Venkatesh and Sunder Mohan have also decided to put an end to the two-finger test conducted on victims of sexual offences and the archaic potency test conducted on the suspects, by collecting their sperm. The judges have directed the police to come up with a standard operating procedure to conduct a potency test by merely collecting blood samples.

The interim orders were passed on a habeas corpus petition filed in 2022 with respect to a missing minor girl in Cuddalore district. After finding it to be a case of elopement, the judges recorded the submission of the police that they had already filed a closure report before the Juvenile Justice Board after not finding the commission of any kind of offence.

However, when the judges’ attention was drawn to a similar case of two minor children having eloped from Dharmapuri district to Chennai where they rented a house, the Bench found that the personnel of an All Women Police Station had registered a case against the minor boy under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.

Further, a Block Development Officer (BDO) had taken away the minor girl and lodged her in a private home for over a month. She was not allowed to go with her parents despite being pregnant. The minor boy too, was detained at a ‘place of safety’ as defined under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act of 2015 for nearly 20 days.

Pointing out that the minor boy and girl involved in such incidents would fall under the definition of the term ‘child’ (any person below the age of 18 years) as defined under the POCSO Act, the judges were shocked to find the police had treated the minor girl in the case as a victim, and the minor boy as a child in conflict with the law.