Supreme Court To Decide On Criminalising Marital Rape As Delhi HC Delivers Split Verdict

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday referred the matter of criminalisation of marital rape to the Supreme Court after the two judges who heard the case could not reach a consensus on the matter.

The Delhi HC delivered a split verdict on the issue and granted leave to the parties to file an appeal before the Supreme Court.

PTI/ File

Judges couldn't agree

While Justice Rajiv Shakdher, who headed the division bench, favoured striking down the marital rape exception, Justice C Hari Shankar said the exception under the IPC is not unconstitutional and was based on an intelligible differentia.

The petitioners had challenged the constitutionality of the marital rape exception under Section 375 IPC (rape) on the ground that it discriminated against married women who are sexually assaulted by their husbands.

Under the exception given in Section 375 of the IPC, sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his wife, the wife not being minor, is not rape.

Agencies

The case

The petitioners had challenged the constitutionality of the marital rape exception under Section 375 on the ground that it discriminated against married women who are sexually assaulted by their husbands.

Lawyer Karuna Nundy, appearing for the petitioner NGOs, said that the court's declaration criminalising marital rape would go a long way in realising the constitutional goal of equal respect and dignity to all.

The two-judge bench had reserved its judgment on February 21.

On February 7, the high court granted two weeks to the Centre to state its stand on the petitions seeking criminalisation of marital rape.?

Representational Image/iStock

Government says no to criminalisation of marital rape

In its response Centre told the Delhi high court that criminalisation of marital rape “could open the floodgates of false cases being made with ulterior motives”.

Just because other countries, mostly western, have criminalised marital rape does not necessarily mean India should follow them blindly, the government had told the HC.

“India has its own unique problems due to various factors like literacy, lack of financial empowerment of the majority of females, mindset of the society, vast diversity, poverty, etc. and these should be considered carefully before criminalising marital rape,” the government had said.

In 2016, the government had told the parliament that the concept of marital rape cannot be applicable in the Indian context.

BCCL

“It is considered that the concept of marital rape, as understood internationally, cannot be suitably applied in the Indian context,” the then MoS Home, Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary had told the Parliament in March 2016.

Rape is rape says Karnataka HC

Recently the the Karnataka high court, in a landmark order had declined to quash charges of rape framed under Section 376 against a man accused of raping and keeping his wife as a sex slave.

Justice M Nagaprasanna said that the institution of marriage cannot be used to confer any special male privilege or a license for unleashing a "brutal beast" on the wife.

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