Overview
- A two‑judge bench of the Allahabad High Court dismissed petitions seeking to quash an FIR that accuses nine people of raping a woman first as a minor during a 2016 nikah halala and later in a 2025 gangrape staged as a second halala.
- The court held at the threshold that the 2016 incident prima facie attracts the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and statutory rape provisions and that the 2025 episode prima facie constitutes gangrape, so the FIR must remain live for investigation.
- According to the FIR as set out in court papers, the complainant was coerced into marriage at about 15 in April 2015, forced into a halala in November 2016 when she was about 16, remarried the principal accused in 2017, and was allegedly raped by relatives during a second halala in February 2025 followed by a bogus nikah.
- The bench rejected arguments that personal or religious marital practices, or the historical legality of triple talaq, can shield accused persons from criminal liability and cited Supreme Court precedent and the new criminal code to stress POCSO’s overriding protection for minors.
- Petitioners have claimed the FIR is motivated by property and child‑custody disputes and that some accused had peripheral roles, but the court said those contentions could not reverse the prima facie findings and ordered a thorough police probe as the next step.