India, Sept. 30 -- Child protection laws cannot be misused for personal vendetta, the Delhi High Court has held while imposing a cost of Rs.10,000 on a woman who used her minor daughter "as a weapon" in a battle against her estranged husband by filing a case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act.

The order, delivered on September 2 by a bench of justice Arun Monga, came while dismissing the woman's plea challenging a November 2024 trial court order that had refused to summon her mother-in-law and sisters-in-law as additional accused in the case.

The case in question dates to 2020, when the woman lodged a first information report (FIR) accusing her husband and the victim's cousin of sexually assaulting her min...