| _version_ | 1866901331705331712 |
|---|---|
| author | RITISHA ROYCHAUDHURI |
| author_facet | RITISHA ROYCHAUDHURI |
| contents | Child sexual abuse law in India has largely been shaped by an overriding impulse to protect, often leaving questions of privacy, dignity, and autonomy at the margins of legal debate. This article interrogates that silence. Focusing on the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO), it critically examines how a statute designed as a shield for children can, in its application, both safeguard and unsettle their constitutional right to privacy. Anchored in the Supreme Court's recognition of privacy as a fundamental right in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, the article argues that privacy under POCSO is not a procedural afterthought but a substantive dimension of child-centred justice. Moving beyond a narrow understanding of confidentiality, the article conceptualises privacy as integral to a child's dignity, psychological recovery, and social reintegration. It analyses statutory safeguards such as identity protection, in-camera trials, and child-friendly procedures, while also engaging with judicial trends that reveal an emerging discomfort with rigid, protection-only approaches, particularly in cases involving mandatory reporting and consensual adolescent relationships. Recent jurisprudence is read as signalling a gradual shift towards contextual and trauma-informed reasoning, exposing the limitations of a binary framing of protection versus privacy. By drawing on critical scholarship and comparative perspectives, the article advances the claim that protection and privacy are not competing imperatives but mutually reinforcing values. A justice system that protects children while disregarding their privacy risks reproducing harm in the very process of redress. The article ultimately calls for a reimagining of POCSO jurisprudence, one that places dignity, autonomy, and care at its normative core, thereby offering a more humane and constitutionally faithful vision of child justice in India. |
| format | Recurso digital |
| id | zenodo_https___doi_org_10_5281_zenodo_18987088 |
| institution | Zenodo |
| language | |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| publisher | Zenodo |
| record_format | zenodo |
| spellingShingle | RECONCILING PROTECTION AND PRIVACY UNDER THE POCSO ACT: A CHILD-CENTRED JUSTICE PARADIGM RITISHA ROYCHAUDHURI Child sexual abuse law in India has largely been shaped by an overriding impulse to protect, often leaving questions of privacy, dignity, and autonomy at the margins of legal debate. This article interrogates that silence. Focusing on the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO), it critically examines how a statute designed as a shield for children can, in its application, both safeguard and unsettle their constitutional right to privacy. Anchored in the Supreme Court's recognition of privacy as a fundamental right in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, the article argues that privacy under POCSO is not a procedural afterthought but a substantive dimension of child-centred justice. Moving beyond a narrow understanding of confidentiality, the article conceptualises privacy as integral to a child's dignity, psychological recovery, and social reintegration. It analyses statutory safeguards such as identity protection, in-camera trials, and child-friendly procedures, while also engaging with judicial trends that reveal an emerging discomfort with rigid, protection-only approaches, particularly in cases involving mandatory reporting and consensual adolescent relationships. Recent jurisprudence is read as signalling a gradual shift towards contextual and trauma-informed reasoning, exposing the limitations of a binary framing of protection versus privacy. By drawing on critical scholarship and comparative perspectives, the article advances the claim that protection and privacy are not competing imperatives but mutually reinforcing values. A justice system that protects children while disregarding their privacy risks reproducing harm in the very process of redress. The article ultimately calls for a reimagining of POCSO jurisprudence, one that places dignity, autonomy, and care at its normative core, thereby offering a more humane and constitutionally faithful vision of child justice in India. |
| title | RECONCILING PROTECTION AND PRIVACY UNDER THE POCSO ACT: A CHILD-CENTRED JUSTICE PARADIGM |
| url | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18987088 |