On 9 January 2026, a two-judge bench held that mandating medical age-determination at the bail stage in POCSO matters is impermissible and urged the Centre to consider a 'Romeo–Juliet' clause for close-in-age consensual relationships.
The Supreme Court's May 2026 directions on curbing sex trafficking of women and children have been widely reported in the institutional architecture they engage — directions to States, calls for inter-agency coordination, and a continuing supervisory role for the Court. A practitioner's read on the framework the directions sit within: the constitutional protection of life and dignity under Article 21, the ITPA framework, and the trafficking-protection architecture that the Court has been developing across several decades.
A Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court has reaffirmed that a conviction recorded against a juvenile under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act cannot operate as a disqualification for appointment to government or public services. The reasoning engages the rehabilitation-and-reintegration principle that anchors the entire JJ Act framework, and the constitutional protection of privacy and dignity that follows the *Puttaswamy* line. A digest of the doctrinal architecture, the bench's directions, and its relationship with the broader 'right to be forgotten' jurisprudence.