WHEN PROTECTION BECOMES PROSECUTION: RECONCILING POCSO WITH THE REHABILITATIVE PHILOSOPHY OF JUVENILE JUSTICE

The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO) represents a significant legislative commitment towards protecting children from sexual abuse, exploitation and harassment. By adopting an age-based definition of a child and criminalising sexual conduct involving persons below eighteen years, the Act deliberately places child protection above the question of legal consent. However, the operation of this framework creates a difficult legal and policy problem where the person alleged to have committed the offence is himself or herself an adolescent, particularly in cases involving consensual or apparently consensual relationships between adolescents close in age. In such circumstances, the protective objective of POCSO may intersect with the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (JJ Act), which is founded upon rehabilitation, restoration, dignity, participation, diversion and the best interests of the child. This paper examines the tension between these two legislative frameworks. It argues that POCSO and juvenile justice are not inherently contradictory: POCSO determines the nature of prohibited conduct and protects the child from sexual exploitation, whereas the JJ Act determines how a child who comes into conflict with law should be treated. Nevertheless, the rigid application of POCSO to adolescent relationships may sometimes produce consequences inconsistent with the rehabilitative philosophy of juvenile justice. The paper analyses the statutory framework, constitutional principles, judicial decisions and the recommendations of the 22nd Law Commission of India in its 283rd Report. It proposes a calibrated approach involving stronger prosecutorial scrutiny, age-gap and power-imbalance assessment, child-sensitive investigation, diversion wherever legally permissible, specialized judicial guidelines and limited sentencing discretion in genuinely non-exploitative cases involving adolescents aged sixteen to eighteen. The objective should not be to create a blanket exception to POCSO, but to ensure that protection does not unnecessarily become a pathway to disproportionate criminalization.