Juvenile Offenders And Gender-Based Violence: Challenges In Policy And Practice Under The POCSO And JJ Act
- IJLLR Journal
- Jun 18
- 1 min read
Kajal Shukla, Galgotias University, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh-203201
“Juveniles need reformative care, not retributive punishment. The law must recognize their capacity to change, while also ensuring justice for victims of sexual violence.”
- Justice Madan B. Lokur
ABSTRACT
The concurrent application of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO) and the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (JJ Act) raises complex legal challenges when minors are both the complainants and the accused in cases involving sexual conduct. This paper explores the normative and procedural conflicts that arise at this intersection, particularly scrutinizing the absolute age of consent under POCSO and the discretionary mechanism for transferring children to adult courts under Section 15 of the JJ Act.
By engaging with statutory interpretation, judicial discourse, and empirical data from various Indian jurisdictions, the paper argues that current legal frameworks insufficiently accommodate the developmental realities of adolescents. The automatic criminalization of consensual peer relationships and the absence of consistently applied child-sensitive procedures risk undermining both the rehabilitative aims of juvenile justice and India’s international obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
The paper calls for a jurisprudential recalibration—emphasizing contextual analysis, child rights-compliant interpretation, and institutional safeguards to prevent misuse of prosecutorial discretion in juvenile sexual offence cases. This approach aims to harmonize statutory intent with constitutional values and international child protection standards.
Keywords: Juvenile, POCSO, Sexual Conduct, criminalization, adolescent, UNCRC, JJ.
