In a rare and unsettling turn, the Supreme Court has opted not to impose a sentence on a man convicted under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, citing the victim’s lived reality—one that legal definitions alone failed to capture.
The decision, handed down by a bench comprising Justices Abhay Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan, leans on Article 142 of the Constitution, allowing the Court to do “complete justice.” And in this case, justice took the shape of restraint.
The convicted man, now married to the victim—a woman who was a minor when the incident occurred—is living with her and their child. The Court took note of the fact that she never regarded the act as criminal, and has instead spent years enduring what it called a second wave of suffering: judgment from society, abandonment by her own family, and the exhausting machinery of legal prosecution.
“She didn’t suffer from the incident,” the Court remarked bluntly. “She suffered from the consequences.” The trauma came not from the act itself, but from the response it triggered—from the police, the courts, and the unforgiving glare of public morality.
The Court acknowledged a deeply uncomfortable paradox: while the law recognized a crime, the woman at the center of the case did not. A court-appointed expert committee echoed this, stating the victim had developed an emotional bond with the man—one that has evolved into a small, fiercely guarded family unit.
“She is now very possessive about this family,” the Court noted, calling the situation an “eye-opener” on the legal system’s limitations in navigating lived human experiences. The case, it said, highlighted painful blind spots—particularly how the justice system sometimes steamrolls over the people it’s meant to protect.
The origins of this case are steeped in controversy. The Supreme Court had earlier intervened after the Calcutta High Court acquitted a 25-year-old man convicted under the POCSO Act. That acquittal was accompanied by troubling commentary about adolescent girls needing to “control their urges”—remarks the top court later condemned as regressive and unconstitutional.
Upon review, the Supreme Court reinstated the man’s conviction under the POCSO Act and sections of the IPC relating to rape. However, before determining punishment, it called for a detailed psychological and social evaluation of the victim’s current life.
The West Bengal Government was directed to form a three-member expert panel, including a clinical psychologist, a social scientist, and a child welfare officer. The goal: to assess whether the victim had been coerced into her present circumstances or had truly exercised free will.
The panel found no indication of coercion. Instead, they saw emotional attachment and an informed—if complicated—decision to continue the relationship.
Based on that assessment, the Court chose not to impose a prison term. It also issued fresh directions to the State and the Ministry of Women and Child Development, signaling a potential relook at how statutory offences intersect with lived experience—especially when those experiences resist binary definitions of victim and offender.
This case, at its core, is less about one man’s punishment and more about what happens when law, society, and personal agency collide in the murky, unforgiving middle.