India’s judiciary appears to be standing at a moral crossroads — and alarmingly, it’s leaning toward indulgence over integrity. In case after case, courts have begun treating sex with minors not as exploitation but as “romantic relationships,” blurring the line between affection and abuse. What began as compassion for adolescent “love stories” has now mutated into a dangerous trend of legal leniency that threatens to undo years of child protection reform.
When empathy becomes a weapon against law
The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, was never ambiguous. It clearly defines all sexual activity with individuals under 18 as an offence — to protect minors from grooming, coercion, and manipulation. Yet, several courts today seem determined to reinterpret it through an emotional, rather than legal, lens.
In 2025, the Madras High Court quashed a POCSO conviction because the “relationship appeared consensual” between a 23-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl.
In 2024, the Karnataka High Court granted bail to a 27-year-old, ruling that the 16-year-old “was mature enough to decide for herself.”
These judgments were applauded by certain “progressive” voices — but they ignore a brutal truth: the exception does not make the rule.
Selective outrage, dangerous precedents
These verdicts reflect not empathy but judicial amnesia. When courts begin romanticizing exploitation as love, they empower predators and weaken the very foundation of child safety.
Worse, there’s a selective moral blindness at play. In several cases across Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Kerala, underage Hindu girls have been groomed through deception, fake identities, and coercive conversion — yet the same ecosystem that lectures on “teenage choice” falls silent.
When 16-year-old girls are lured under the pretext of “love” and manipulated into conversion or sexual submission, it isn’t empowerment — it’s predation masked as affection. Courts that sympathize with the accused in such “consensual” relationships must confront the uncomfortable truth: grooming doesn’t always wear the face of violence. Sometimes, it whispers promises of love.
The fallacy of the “mature teenager” argument
Judges and activists pushing for lowering the age of consent from 18 to 16 conveniently ignore neuroscience. The prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain that governs reasoning, judgment, and impulse control — doesn’t fully develop until the mid-20s.
If a 16-year-old is “mature enough” to consent to sex, why isn’t she allowed to vote, marry, or drive? The argument collapses under its own hypocrisy. Consent without cognitive maturity isn’t consent — it’s compliance under illusion.
When the bench forgets its limits
The judiciary’s role is to interpret law, not rewrite it. Yet, many recent rulings resemble social commentaries rather than legal judgments. When a judge says “love cannot be criminalized,” he isn’t interpreting POCSO — he’s dismantling it.
Each time a bench sympathizes with an adult accused of sleeping with a minor, it sends a chilling signal: that law is negotiable when draped in the language of romance. Parliament enacted POCSO to protect the vulnerable, not to give poetic cover to predators.
The cost of moral confusion
In a country where sexual education remains poor and patriarchal manipulation thrives, judicial indulgence is not compassion — it’s complicity. Lowering the legal age or normalizing “contextual consent” will not protect adolescents; it will embolden predators and silence victims.
Every diluted ruling chips away at child protection. Every judgment dressed in empathy erases accountability. If unchecked, this drift could turn India’s courts from defenders of justice into enablers of exploitation.
As former Delhi High Court judge Justice R.S. Sodhi rightly warned, “When the courts begin to read morality into law, they stop interpreting and start indulging. That’s the beginning of legal anarchy.”
Author’s Note:
Harshita Rai writes on law, policy, and society. Her columns focus on the intersection of justice, governance, and public morality.
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