BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh High Court has requested the central government, to consider reducing the age of consent from 18 years to 16 years under Section 375 IPC (which deals with rape) for “redressing the injustice being caused to adolescent boys.”
While quashing a 2020 rape case filed against a 20-year-old youth by a 17-year-old girl, the single judge bench of the HC in Gwalior, headed by Justice Deepak Kumar Agarwal observed on June 27, “This court would like to share its experience as a judge that before amendments in IPC under Section 375 of IPC regarding age of prosecutrix for the purpose of consent that was 16 years and subsequently enhanced by amendment up to 18 years due to this amendment, fabric of society has been disturbed. Nowadays, every male or female near the age of 14 years due to social media awareness and easily accessible internet connectivity is getting puberty in early age.”
The HC further pointed out that owing to it, female and male children are getting attracted to each other and these attractions are resulting in physical relationships with consent. “In these cases, males are not at all criminals. It is only a matter of age when they come into contact with females and develop physical relationships. Only due to this reason, lawmakers in IPC, when it came into force, put the age of female as 16 years since they were well aware of the aforesaid facts.”
“Generally, girls and boys of adolescent age develop friendship and thereafter, due to attraction make a physical relationship. But, due to this rider boys are treated like criminals in society. Today, in most criminal cases in which the prosecutrix is under 18 years of age, due to the aforementioned anomaly, injustice is going on with adolescent boys. Thus, I request the government to think over the matter for reducing the age of the prosecutrix,” the bench observed.