A marriage claimed to be valid under the Muslim personal law cannot confer immunity from penal law for establishing physical relations with a minor wife, the Delhi High Court has held.The HC said the framework under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act would be weakened if an adult could answer a prosecution concerning a girl aged below 18 simply by producing a marriage certificate recognised by a personal law.“Then, the statutory protection would not depend upon the child’s age, but upon whether a marriage had been arranged before the sexual relationship was discovered. That would turn the legislation on its head,” Justice Sanjeev Narula said in a September 23 order.The court’s observations came while refusing to quash a criminal case registered against a man for allegedly sexually assaulting a minor, his wife.The couple got married when the girl was 16 years and three months old and the man was 28 years old. They subsequently lived together and the girl became pregnant. Her age came to light when she visited a government hospital during her pregnancy. The girl later delivered a stillborn baby.A case was lodged against the man under the POCSO Act when the matter was reported to the police by the hospital authorities.The girl maintained the marriage took place with the consent of both families and she had not been subjected to force or coercion. She also supported the man’s bail application earlier and sought his presence during her pregnancy.In their plea, the couple argued that under the Muslim personal law, a Muslim girl who had attained puberty was competent to marry and that the validity of the marriage meant that the subsequent sexual relationship could not attract criminal liability.The court, however, said the proposition that a marriage under the Muslim personal law itself removes the criminality of the subsequent sexual relationship cannot be accepted. It added that a marriage does not advance a child’s age and a person aged 16 before the ceremony remains the same age afterwards.