India, Sept. 28 -- A marriage claimed to be valid under Muslim personal law cannot confer immunity from penal law for establishing physical relations with a minor wife, the Delhi High Court has held.

The High Court said the POCSO framework would be substantially weakened if an adult could answer a prosecution concerning a girl below the age of 18 simply by producing a marriage certificate recognised by personal law.

"The statutory protection would then depend not upon the age of the child, 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 cr...