India - SC convicts boys for sex with 16-yr-old girlfriend

NEW DELHI: If love is blind, so is justice. Long after a boy, then 19 years old, eloped with his 16-year-old girlfriend from rural Punjab and the two had sex, the boy — now a man — stands convicted for rape by the Supreme Court and will spend the next three years behind bars. The girl being a minor, her consent to sex did not help mitigate the boy's offence. For, law terms sex with a minor, with or without her consent, as rape. What saved him from a harsher sentence of seven years was a leniency plea from the girl's father. The boy, Rakesh Kumar, had been arrested after the girl's father accused him of kidnapping and raping his minor daughter. A trial court in Patiala convicted Rakesh Kumar and sentenced him to seven years' imprisonment, despite the girl confessing that she had sex as she was in love with him. Kumar appealed in the Punjab and Haryana high court, which said it would be harsh to send the boy behind bars, long after the incident, for seven years just because two youngsters in love had sex. While maintaining the conviction, it reduced the sentence to the period already undergone and asked the authorities to release him. The main ground for leniency, as mentioned in the high court judgment, was the rural background of the boy. The state government appealed against the judgment saying rape convicts could not be let off lightly as it could encourage other such offenders. A Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat and M K Sharma was caught in a dilemma as on one hand a heinous crime like rape could not be condoned, while on the other, there was a confession from the girl and a plea from her father to be lenient to the convict. In the end, the bench felt that high court was not justified in reducing the sentence of a person convicted of rape, a heinous offence. The court must not only keep in view the rights of the criminal but also the rights of the victim and the society at large while considering imposition of appropriate punishment, said Justice Pasayat, writing the judgment for the bench. He said courts, while using their discretion to award punishment less than that prescribed in law, must record cogent reasons and not because the convict belonged to a rural background, as had been stated by the high court. However, the apex court was also aware that the victim and the accused were in love and the victim had admitted that she willingly had sex with the accused.

What additionally weighed with the court in reducing the sentence to three years was the plea of the girl's father, who had filed an affidavit saying since the victim was settled in life, a liberal view may be taken so far as sentence was concerned. Heeding these circumstances, SC sent the man to three years behind bars and also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000. The court asked Rs 8,000 from it to be paid to the victim. Times View: Sexual predators who prey on youngsters must be dealt with sternly. But the legal system should take a more lenient view towards consensual sex between teenagers — especially those in their late teens, as in this case. Sexual awareness — and experimentation — is on the rise among Indian teenagers. While this may disturb many parents, surely jailing young men as punishment is an excessive reaction.