Abstract

The child abuse was considered as a heinous crime and there was no special law catering to this crime. Therefore, the legislature provided for the POCSO Act 2012 to deal with the crimes related to the children. But the increase in the number of cases under POCSO Act shows that the law needs amendment in the law. The judiciary while adjudicating the cases related to POCSO Act laid down several guidelines to interpret the law and also suggested for the change in the law as the present law was not suitable in the prevalent society. The researcher will use the doctrinal method to analyse the law and its implications. The researcher would also like to discuss some landmark case laws related to the subject. The researcher had analyzed that the present law wherein the age of the child is 18 years old needs to be reduced as there are huge number of cases which fall in the category of POCSO Act 2012 are consensual relationship. Due to the digital and social media era, the children are exposed to the adult content and therefore considers such relationship to be normal and also considers that they have a right on their own body thereby such cases can be fall in some other category of offences and cannot bring under the POCSO Act 2012. Implications: The law on age of consent needs to be revised as per international standards and in many other countries is 16 years. In order to use the Act more effectively and fairly in dealing with criminals while also preventing its abuse by unscrupulous members of society, a number of gaps and inconsistencies have been found during its operation and implementation at the local level. These issues need to be fixed.

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