Case Title: Rahul Chandel vs State

A single bench of Justice Deepak Kumar Agarwal  of Madhya Pradesh High Court urged the Central government to reduce the age of consent for sex from the current 18 years to 16 years.

Justice said that most of the criminal cases in which the prosecutrix is under 18 years of age, injustice is going on with adolescent boys.

“Generally, girls and boys of adolescents age develop friendship and thereafter, due to attraction make physical relationship. But, due to this rider boy is treated like a criminal in the society. Today, most of criminal cases in which prosecutrix is under 18 years of age, due to aforesaid anomaly, injustice is going on with adolescent boys. Thus, I request Government of India to think over the matter for reducing the age of prosecutrix from 18 to 16 years as earlier before amendments so that injustice should be redressed.”

The judge also opined that due to their exposure to social media, adolescents were “getting puberty in early age” and entering into consensual sexual relationships before turning adults.

The bench opined that due easily accessible internet connectivity the adolescents were getting puberty in early age. “Now a days, 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. Owing to this, female and male child are getting attraction and these attractions are resulting into physical relationship with consent. In these cases, male persons are not at all criminal. It is only a matter of age when they come into contact with female and develop physical relationship”.

The complaint was filed by a girl against a 23-year-old man and other students, she alleged that the accused offered her coaching classes, gave her juice and after consuming juice she fell unconscious. The man engaged in sexual intercourse with her and also recorded a video of the said act by which he used to blackmail her and thereby forced her to have sexual intercourse with him.

The counsel appearing for the accused submitted that, there was a delay of approximately 7 months in filing of the complaint and if any sexual intercourse had occurred between them then it was consensual.

The bench opined that in the age group of the victim, the mental and physical development of adolescents suggest that they are capable of making decisions regarding their well-being.

The bench found it appropriate to quash the complaint considering the facts and circumstances of the case.