Overview
- Justice Sanjeev Narula held that courts cannot craft judge‑made carve‑outs for relationships involving minors close to 18.
- The petition sought to end proceedings against a man and his family after a girl, then about 16, lived with him and later had a child.
- The court said the proper inquiry is proof of the complainant’s age and the occurrence of the proscribed act, not whether the minor agreed.
- Quashing the case, the judge warned, could be read as retrospectively sanitising child marriages and undermining legislative deterrence.
- The FIR, triggered by a 2023 domestic‑violence helpline call, will proceed under POCSO, IPC provisions and the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act.