The Chhattisgarh High Court at Bilaspur has dismissed a State appeal challenging the acquittal of two men accused in a case that arose under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and related IPC provisions. The judgment, delivered by a division bench of Justices Sanjay S. Agrawal and Sanjay Kumar Jaiswal on October 30, 2025, upholds the trial court’s finding that the prosecutrix left her in-laws’ home of her own volition and that the accused did not actively entice or forcibly remove her.
The case stems from an FIR filed on May 24, 2016, after a woman reported that her minor wife had left the in-laws’ house on May 22 and had been taken to the village of Nagdha. The prosecution alleged that respondent No.1, Maniram Verma, had enticed the minor away on the pretext of marriage and had then committed sexual intercourse with her, with assistance from respondent No.2, Parmeshwar Yadav. The trial court accepted the prosecutrix’s testimony that she had a consensual relationship with Maniram, that she left with him by her own insistence, and that no sexual intercourse or force had been proved against him or any active participation by Parmeshwar. On that basis both respondents were acquitted and the State appealed.
On appeal, the High Court carefully reviewed the trial record and the prosecutrix’s testimony. The bench emphasized established principles from precedent that a person who voluntarily leaves the lawful custody of a guardian cannot, without more, support a conviction for kidnapping from lawful guardianship. The court relied on the classic authority of S. Varadarajan v. State of Madras and related reasoning: if a minor leaves guardian control by her own decision and there is no evidence the accused persuaded or induced her to do so, criminal liability for abduction is not made out. Applying those principles to the present record, the court concluded the prosecution had not shown the necessary active participation or inducement by the accused, and therefore the appeal was without merit.
The judgment clarifies two points that will matter in similar cases. First, the court treated the age question as one for the trial court to resolve on the basis of documentary and oral evidence. Second, where a minor’s conduct shows a voluntary decision to leave, the prosecution must prove some act of persuasion, solicitation, or earlier inducement by the accused to convert that voluntary departure into an offence under Section 363 of the Indian Penal Code. The High Court found those elements missing here and dismissed the appeal.
For practitioners and readers this decision is a reminder that POCSO prosecutions and related abduction charges require careful proof not only of the victim’s age but of the accused’s active role in inducing the departure. The court’s reasoned application of Supreme Court precedent underscores the distinction between facilitating a person’s wishes and unlawfully taking a person from lawful guardianship.
Citation : 2025 Local Law (CG) 840
Case Details : ACQA No.216 of 2018, State of Chhattisgarh vs Maniram Verma and Another, For Appellant : Mr. Arpit Agrawal, Panel Lawyer For Respondents : Mr. Raghvendra Pradhan, Advocate