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K. Kirubakaran vs. State of Tamil Nadu

Not available · 2025 INSC 1272Decided 28 Oct 2025
Not available
Justice Dipankar Datta · Justice Augustine George Masih

Background

The appellant was convicted under Section 366 IPC and Section 6 of the POCSO Act and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment, a conviction upheld by the Madras High Court. While his appeal was pending before the Supreme Court, the appellant married the victim in May 2021, and the couple have since had a child together. The Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority, on the Court's direction, confirmed that the appellant's wife was living happily with him and their child and wished to continue doing so; she filed an affidavit to this effect before the Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court noted that the marriage, the birth of a child, and the wife's own sworn wish to continue her family life were subsequent developments that made continued incarceration of the appellant harmful to the very victim the law sought to protect, as well as to the child and family unit. Invoking its special power under Article 142 of the Constitution to do complete justice, the Court quashed the criminal proceedings, conviction, and sentence against the appellant. It attached a strict condition that the appellant must never desert his wife and child and must maintain them for life, warning of serious consequences if he defaults, and it expressly stated that this order was based on the case's unique facts and must not be treated as a precedent for other cases.

Lesson Learnt

The Supreme Court can use its extraordinary Article 142 power to reach an outcome that serves genuine justice even after a conviction, but it does so only in truly exceptional circumstances and explicitly refuses to let such an order become a template: POCSO convictions are not ordinarily undone by a later marriage to the victim.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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