Court permits deferment of trial for proceedings in a related matter under POCSO Act.

Devan Ramachandran , J .

The limited plea of the petitioner is that the learned Family Court, Ernakulam, be directed to defer the trial in GOP No.2121/2020, until Crl.M.C.No.142/2024 pending before this Court is disposed of.

2. Smt.A.Parvathi Menon – learned counsel for the petitioner, submitted that the reason why her client has been constrained to approach this Court is that he has been implicated in a case filed at the instance of the respondent, invoking the provisions of POCSO Act; and hence not in a position to participate in the trial in the custody petition filed by him qua the children. She, therefore, reiteratingly prayed that the relief sought for in this Original Petition be granted. 3. In response, the learned counsel for the respondent submitted that the aforementioned submissions are not accurate because, the case under the POCSO Act has not been registered at the instance of her client, but at the instance of the school of the child, which reported the matter to the Child Welfare Committee. She argued that, in such circumstance, the above request is untenable.

4. We notice that the GOP has been filed by the petitioner himself and he seeks that it be deferred, so that he will be able to have Crl.M.C.No.142/2024 – which he says has been filed to have the aforementioned case under the POCSO Act quashed – be disposed of. In order to ensure that the petitioner is not lost to any opportunity that he may have in law, we deem it appropriate to intervene to a limited extent.

5. In the afore circumstances, we allow this Original Petition to the sole extent of directing the learned Family Court, Ernakulam, to defer the trial in GOP No.2121/2020 for a period of three weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this judgment.

Needless to say, we have not entered into the merits of any of the rival contentions and all of them are left open.

Sd/- DEVAN RAMACHANDRAN JUDGE Sd/- HARISANKAR V. MENON JUDGE stu APPENDIX OF OP (FC) NO. 115 OF 2026 PETITIONER EXHIBITS Exhibit P1 A TRUE COPY OF THE JUDGMENT DATED