Chhattisgarh High Court: No Forced Pregnancy for Minor Rape Survivor

The Chhattisgarh High Court has ruled that a rape survivor who was a minor at the time of the assault cannot be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy beyond the statutory limit. The court allowed the medical termination of a pregnancy that had crossed 24 weeks, emphasising that compelling such a victim would perpetuate the trauma of sexual violence.

Justice Amitendra Kishore Prasad was hearing a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution. The petitioner alleged she was sexually exploited as a minor and that the pregnancy resulted from offences under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

The court stated: “The legislative intent is explicit that a woman who has conceived as a consequence of rape should not be compelled to undergo further psychological trauma by continuation of an unwanted pregnancy. The said presumption acquires still greater significance where the victim was a minor on the date of the incident. Compelling such a victim to continue with the pregnancy against her wishes would amount to perpetuating the trauma already suffered by her and would seriously impair her dignity, bodily integrity and mental well-being.”

The case reached the high court after a Medical Board, constituted on the court’s directions, examined the survivor and reported that she was approximately 25 weeks and five days pregnant. The Board stated that termination was not permissible under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act because the pregnancy had crossed 24 weeks. However, the high court held that the survivor’s constitutional rights and the extraordinary facts of the case warranted judicial intervention.

Justice Prasad said that refusing termination would continue to violate the petitioner’s rights to dignity, privacy, bodily autonomy and reproductive choice under Article 21 of the Constitution.

The court examined the medical board’s report, which noted the pregnancy duration, anaemia with haemoglobin of 8.7 gm/dL, and that the foetus showed no gross abnormality. The board concluded termination was not permissible due to the 24-week limit under the MTP Act. However, the high court ruled that the medical board’s opinion could not be treated as binding upon a constitutional court.

The court also noted that medical science recognises that gestational age determined through ultrasonography is only an estimate with an accepted margin of error of approximately two weeks. Therefore, the sonography report could not be an inflexible basis to deny relief in a case involving fundamental rights.

The court observed that the MTP Act itself recognises survivors of rape and minors as a special category by creating a statutory presumption that a pregnancy caused by rape results in grave mental trauma and psychological suffering. Justice Prasad said this presumption becomes even stronger where the survivor was a child at the time of the assault. The trauma of sexual violence, combined with emotional, psychological and social consequences, justified the court’s intervention to protect the petitioner’s constitutional rights.