AUTONOMY PARADOX IN INDIA’S POCSO REGIME: CRIMINALIZATION OF CONSENSUAL ADOLESCENT RELATIONSHIPS

The Protection of Children Sexual offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, was approved to enhance the legal rights of children in India by implying the rights of children against sexual abuse and exploitation.Things however have changed and recent statistics and jurisprudence show the beginning of a new wave which is the prosecution of consensual relations between adolescents (ages 16-18 years) under the Act, frequently at the urging of parents who object to the relationships on moral, caste, or religious grounds.This trend brings about an autonomy paradox, in which the constitutional principles of privacy, dignity, and agency of adolescents conflict with the strict criminalization of any sexual act with minors as provided by the POCSO Act.This article is based on the NCRB statistics (2023)(2024) and the contextual examination of recent case law in the Deepika Paira and Prof (Dr).B. Venugopal https://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJLS 29 editor@iaeme.comHigh Court and claims that the strict liability doctrine of POCSO leads to overcriminalization of teenage behavior and affects marginalized groups disproportionately and to the detriment of the protective purposes of the law.At the end of the article, there are several recommendations on the legal reform, such as close-in-age exemption and judicial discretion on the distinction between consensual adolescent intimacy and exploitative abuse.