High Court called a 25-year-old's sex with a 14-year-old 'romance'. Supreme Court just reversed that.

A 25-year-old man had a child with a 14-year-old girl. The High Court called it a 'romantic relationship' and set him free. The Supreme Court just reversed that — and slammed the judge for it.

The girl was fourteen when the relationship began. By the time the case reached the Supreme Court, she was living with the man who had been convicted of raping her, raising their infant daughter in a home where the law had declared him innocent. The question was brutal: could a High Court use its special constitutional powers to erase a rape conviction by calling it romance?

When a 14-year-old left home

In May 2018, a girl from South 24 Parganas in West Bengal left her parents' house. She was fourteen years old. She went to live with a 25-year-old man. Over the following months, the relationship turned sexual. The girl became pregnant. She gave birth to a daughter.

Her mother filed an FIR — a written complaint that starts a police investigation — with the local police, the paper carrying her signature and the date: 29 May 2018. The accused was arrested only in December 2021 — more than three years after the FIR was registered. By then, the girl was no longer a child. She was living with the accused, caring for their child. Her parents had abandoned her.

The trial court convicts

The Special Judge for POCSO cases in Baruipur did not hesitate. The evidence was clear: a 25-year-old man had committed aggravated penetrative sexual assault — the most serious category of sexual offence against a child under the POCSO Act — on a 14-year-old. The pregnancy was proof. The birth was proof. The judge convicted the accused under Section 6 of the POCSO Act (punishment for aggravated penetrative sexual assault) and under Sections 376(2)(n) and 376(3) of the Indian Penal Code (rape of a woman under 18, and repeated rape). The courtroom fell silent as the verdict was read; the file, thick with medical reports and witness statements, sat heavy on the judge's desk.

The man went to prison. The girl and her child remained outside, without the accused, without her parents, without any state agency stepping in to help.

What the High Court did

The accused appealed to the Calcutta High Court. The Division Bench acknowledged that the offences were proved. The evidence was not disputed. The conviction was sound.

Then the High Court did something extraordinary. It used its plenary powers under Article 226 of the Constitution (the High Court's power to issue writs) read with Section 482 of the CrPC (the High Court's inherent power to prevent abuse of process) to acquit the accused on all counts. The judgment described the relationship between a 25-year-old man and a 14-year-old girl as a 'romantic relationship'. It suggested that the girl had consented. It treated the pregnancy and the birth of the child as evidence of a stable relationship rather than a crime. The judges on the bench, their expressions impassive, signed off on an order that rewrote the law.

Why consent did not matter

The High Court's reasoning ran into a wall of black-letter law. Under Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, specifically the sixthly clause, penetrative intercourse with a woman under 18 constitutes rape regardless of consent. The law does not ask whether the girl agreed. It does not ask whether she loved the man. It does not ask whether she stayed with him willingly. The only question is her age. If she is under 18, it is rape. Period.

The POCSO Act is even stricter. Section 3 defines penetrative sexual assault on a child — anyone under 18 — as a crime. Section 5(j)(ii) makes it aggravated penetrative sexual assault when the assault results in pregnancy. The punishment under Section 6 is imprisonment for life or for a term not less than twenty years.

The High Court knew this. It acknowledged the offences were proved. But it used its special powers to set aside the conviction anyway, on grounds of consensual relationship and welfare considerations. The Supreme Court would later call this reasoning 'perverse'.

The Supreme Court steps in

The Supreme Court took suo motu cognizance — it acted on its own, without waiting for an appeal. The bench, led by Justice Abhay S. Oka, examined the High Court judgment and found it legally untenable. The order sheet, dated 16 August 2024, bore the case number: Suo Motu Writ Petition (C) No. 3 of 2023 with Criminal Appeal No. 1451 of 2024.

The court held that when offences of rape and aggravated penetrative sexual assault under the POCSO Act are proved, the High Court cannot acquit the accused by exercising jurisdiction under Article 226 or Section 482 CrPC, regardless of any consensual relationship or welfare considerations. The law does not permit it. The Constitution does not permit it. A 'romantic relationship' with a 14-year-old is not a defence to rape. It is the crime itself.

Justice Oka's ruling was blunt: the High Court's judgment was "perverse" and contained "irrelevant observations" that had no place in a judicial pronouncement. The Supreme Court restored the conviction under Section 6 of the POCSO Act and Sections 376(2)(n) and 376(3) of the IPC. The High Court's acquittal on the kidnapping charges under Sections 363 and 366 IPC was left undisturbed — those were separate offences with separate factual issues.

What the High Court got wrong about welfare

The High Court had argued that the girl was living with the accused, that she had a child with him, and that sending him to prison would harm the child's welfare. The Supreme Court rejected this reasoning on two grounds.

First, welfare considerations cannot override criminal law. A man who has committed a serious offence cannot be acquitted because his victim is now dependent on him. That logic would create a perverse incentive: commit the crime, keep the victim dependent, and escape punishment.

Second, the girl herself was a 'child in need of care and protection' under Section 2(14) of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015. The moment the POCSO offence was discovered, the state had a mandatory duty to intervene. Section 19(6) of the POCSO Act requires that every report of a POCSO offence be forwarded to the Child Welfare Committee (CWC). The CWC, under Sections 29, 30, 39, and 46 of the JJ Act, is required to take the child into protective custody, provide rehabilitation, and ensure after-care.

None of this happened. The state failed the girl at every stage — when she left home, when the FIR was filed, when she gave birth, when the High Court acquitted the accused. The Supreme Court directed the state to comply with all JJ Act obligations for the victim and her child.

Why the judgment matters for every lawyer

The Supreme Court's ratio decidendi — its central legal reasoning — has three components that every practitioner should note.

First, the High Court's inherent powers under Section 482 CrPC and Article 226 cannot be used to acquit an accused when the offences are proved. These powers exist to prevent abuse of process, not to override substantive criminal law. A judge who disagrees with a conviction must set aside the finding on legal grounds, not use special powers to bypass the law.

Second, a judgment must contain only findings relevant to the decision. Personal opinions of judges, advisory observations, and irrelevant material have no place in judicial pronouncements. The High Court's observations about adolescent sexuality and hormones were legally irrelevant and had no business being in a judgment.

Third, every POCSO case involving a child victim triggers mandatory obligations under the JJ Act. The state cannot treat a child victim as a consenting adult simply because she stays with the accused. The law requires intervention, not indifference.

THE PLAY: When a POCSO offence is proved, no court can use its inherent powers to acquit on grounds of consent or welfare — the law does not recognise consent from a child, and welfare is the state's duty, not the accused's defence.

The child who was never protected

The Supreme Court ended where the case began: with a 14-year-old girl who left home, a 25-year-old man who should have known better, and a legal system that took three years to arrest him, then called it romance, then had to be told by the highest court in the land that rape is rape.

The girl is no longer a child. She is raising a child of her own. The state that failed her now has a court order to do what it should have done six years ago.