PRAYAGRAJ, July 4 -- The Allahabad high court has refused to quash an FIR alleging repeated rape under the guise of nikah halala. The court declined to quash the FIR lodged against nine persons accused of raping the informant in 2016, when she was a minor, during a halala, and later allegedly subjecting her to gang rape as an adult during a second halala in 2025. Dismissing a writ petition filed by Tayyab and three connected petitions, a division bench of Justice JJ Munir and Justice Tarun Saxena observed that if a minor girl is subjected to carnal relations under the guise of nikah halala, even if it is her desire to marry a man who has already divorced her, it would attract the provisions of the Pocso Act. The FIR was registered on December 9, 2025 under various provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, and the Pocso Act at Saidnagli police station in Amroha district, alleging incidents of sexual exploitation spanning nearly a decade. During the hearing, counsel for the petitioners submitted that in 2016, triple talaq was still permissible under Sharia law and that nikah halala is a valid religious practice. It was further argued that under personal law, a marriage involving a minor is not void but merely voidable and, since the woman did not repudiate it within a year of attaining majority, the marriage was binding. ]The petitioners also alleged that the FIR was an abuse of the legal process aimed at extorting property and gaining leverage in a child custody dispute. Opposing the plea, counsel for the state and the informant argued that the allegations disclosed a pattern of sexual exploitation of a minor, followed by the gang rape of the woman during a second halala. They contended that personal laws cannot be invoked as a shield to commit acts that constitute gang rape under the BNS. The court observed that the allegations disclosed a prima facie case of rape of a minor, followed years later by gang rape under the same pretext in what it described as a more "crude and outlandish manner". Referring to the Supreme Court's judgment in Independent Thought v. Union of India, the bench said the apex court had given overriding effect to the Pocso Act, leaving no scope for lawful sexual intercourse with a girl below the age of 18 years. The court also noted that this protective mandate has now been explicitly incorporated under Exception 2 to Section 63 of the BNS. Rejecting the argument that some of the accused, including the qazi who solemnised the marriage and certain elderly relatives, had only marginal roles, the court observed that all the accused were prima facie part of a common enterprise, with each playing a role that collectively constituted serious offences under the law. Holding that the allegations warranted a thorough police investigation, the high court dismissed all the connected writ petitions in its judgment dated July 1....