"It is time for the legislators to have a re-think regarding existing law by creating certain exceptions and of making allowances regarding the age of the consent/protection keeping in view the changing social attitudes and social sensibilities," Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau said.
The court made the observation while acquitting a youth, facing trial for kidnapping and abducting a young girl here in October 2008 with an intention to compel her to marry him.
The court said both the girl and the accused were in love and had eloped due to opposition by their families but now both of them are residing separately and happily married.
"The legal system in our country cannot be used to punish youngsters in love who are at the verge of attending majority and this court cannot ruin their lives by taking a hyper- technical view especially so when the age gap between these youngsters is within acceptable limits and does not reflect an exploitative coercive situation," the court said.
"In the present case, both the girl and boy being happily married, the matter is now required to be finally rested and under no circumstances, the future of these youngsters can be destroyed by exposing them to their past," it said.
