When the Child Protection Law Is Misused in a Custody Fight

The POCSO Act exists to protect children from sexual abuse. That purpose is not served when the same statute is deployed as a tactical weapon between warring parents.

When parents separate, the dispute over custody can become bitter. In some cases one parent files a complaint under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 against the other. The consequence is immediate: arrest becomes possible, reputation is damaged, employment is at risk, and contact with the child stops.

None of that is a reason to doubt genuine complaints. It is a reason for courts to examine them carefully and early.

In R v. E & Anr., 2026 INSC 1049, decided in September 2026, the Supreme Court quashed a POCSO complaint filed by a mother against a father in the course of a long-running custody dispute. The Court had earlier transferred the investigation to the CBI, which reported that the complaint was not reliable.

The Court described the trend of such complaints as a growing menace, and framed procedural safeguards for the category of cases where a POCSO allegation arises inside a matrimonial or custody conflict.

• A complaint arising during a custody dispute must be scrutinised with care at the earliest stage.
• The court should consider whether the allegation is supported by material independent of the matrimonial dispute.
• Where the allegation is made against a parent or family member during a matrimonial dispute, the Court directed that an expert evaluation — psychiatric or psychological — be obtained before coercive steps are taken.
• Where the complaint appears motivated, proceedings can be quashed at an early stage.
• The mere registration of a POCSO FIR does not by itself decide a parent’s custody or guardianship claim.

The judgment does not create a presumption that a POCSO allegation made during a custody dispute is false. That distinction matters. A parent who genuinely fears for a child’s safety must be able to complain, and the complaint must be investigated.

In this case the Court accepted the CBI’s report, quashed the complaint, and directed consequential steps on the child’s custody and re-integration — the child’s welfare, not the parents’ contest, being the governing consideration. What changes is the standard of attention. A court can no longer treat a custody-dispute complaint as routine, and equally cannot dismiss it as tactical. It must look at the material.

A false complaint injures the accused parent in ways that outlast acquittal: the social stigma does not lift when the case ends, and the lost years with a child cannot be restored.

A genuine complaint that is disbelieved as tactical injures the child, whose protection is the entire object of the Act. The Court’s safeguards are directed at telling the two apart, not at preferring one parent.

• Record the timeline: when the matrimonial dispute began, when custody proceedings started, when the complaint was filed.
• Preserve school records, medical records and communication that bear on the child’s welfare.
• Where a custody order already governs contact, place it before the court hearing the complaint.
• Seek early quashing where the material shows the complaint is an instrument of the custody dispute.
• Where the allegation is genuine, do not delay; the safeguards are not a bar to investigation.