Government should consider reducing the age of sex with consent from 18 years to 16 years - Madhya Pradesh High Court

 The Madhya Pradesh High Court has recently said that the central government should consider reducing the age of consent to sex from 18 years to 16 years Because since the age of consenting sex was increased from 16 years to 18 years in 2013, such youths are facing harassment who have sex with a girl above 16 years of age with her consent. This is happening because the law considers a girl below the age of 18 as a minor.                                                                           The court said that in today's time, due to the influence of social media and easy access to internet connectivity, Puberty occurs in children around the age of 14, Such young boy and girl who become young physically and mentally early, make physical relations with mutual consent, but because the age of sex with consent is 18 years, those youths are also considered criminals those who have sex with a girl below 18 years of age with her consent, due to which such boys have to be victimized, which is injustice to such boys                                                              A bench of Justice Deepak Kumar Aggarwal was hearing a petition seeking to quash a criminal case including F I R pending under Section 376 of the IPC,under section 5 and 6 of the POCSO Act and under section 66 of the Information technology Act.                                                According to the case, a 23-year-old boy named Rahul Chandel Jatav was accused of sexually assaulting a minor girl who used to come to him for tuitions. According to the complaint, when the minor girl came to the accused for tuition, he fed her a drug mixed with juice, after which the accused had sex with her. The accused also made a video of the incident. The victim had alleged that the accused sexually assaulted her several times by threatening to make the video public. The victim further said that the accused used to come to her house several times through the terrace and have physical relations.                                                                          During the hearing of the case, the accused side argued that no coercion was done with the girl and physical relations were made with the consent of the victim. The complaint of sexual assault was lodged after 7 months of the incident.Prosecution in support of its case stated that the victim is a minor below the age of 18 years and therefore the accused is liable for the offense of rape.                                                                 The bench, referring to some earlier court judgements, said that the intention of the law was not at all to punish boys who had physical relations with the girl's consent. But because the age of consensual sex is 18. Offenses are filed in cases of consensual sex under the age of 18.                                                                     After taking into consideration the facts that the victim was a minor but she was in physical relationship with the accused and another person, the court observed that persons of this age group are capable of taking a conscious decision about sexual relations. Along with this, the court agreed that in the present case no criminal incident is seen to have taken place.With this, the court held that no criminal incident is visible in the present case.                                                                                                 Having arrived at this conclusion, the court passed an order quashing all the proceedings pending in the lower court including F I R