THE POCSO ACT (2012): A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT AFTER A DECADE OF ITS ENACTMENT AND ENFORCEMENT

Background: After ten years of implementation, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Act, 2012, which was once heralded as a watershed moment for Indian child law, is now in the Implementation Exhaustion stage. The disparity between punitive populism and trial reality is the main subject of this study, which assesses the systemic progression of the Act. Method: Between 2022 and 2026, a doctrinal empirical qualitative meta-synthesis of Indian scholarship was carried out. The study, which is based on the Implementation Outcomes Framework, uses a Calibration Matrix to standardize indicators between Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the focal case-states.