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Supreme Court response on marital rape

JeetRatneshwar

Published on January 16, 2023

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Key Takeaways:

On Monday, the Supreme Court requested the Center’s response to several petitions calling for the criminalization of marital rape.
Several petitions filed with the Supreme Court have questioned the constitutionality of the marital rape exception in Section 375 of the IPC.

On several petitions calling for the criminalization of marital rape, the Supreme Court requested the Center’s response on Monday.

Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala, as well as Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, led a panel that requested the Union government’s response by February 15 on the matter. The CJI announced that the final hearing on the pleas would start on March 21.

Khushboo Saifi filed one of the petitions about the Delhi High Court’s divided decision. On petitions calling for the criminalization of marital rape, a division bench of the Delhi High Court issued a divided decision in May last year.

While one judge claimed that having a “legitimate expectation of sex” is an “inevitable” aspect of marriage, the other stated that the woman’s right to life and liberty is fundamentally based on her ability to withdraw her consent at any time.

Another appeal has been registered by a man against the Karnataka High Court’s decision not to dismiss rape charges brought by a wife towards her husband.

**Supreme Court response on marital rape**. **Image from The Hindu**

“A guy is a guy; an act is an act; rape is a rape, whether committed by a man the ‘husband’ on the lady the ‘wife,'” a single-judge bench of the Karnataka High Court said in March 2022.

According to the court, the “age-old…regressive” belief that “husbands are the controller of their wives, their body, mind, as well as a soul, should be effaced” should be abolished.

Among the various petitions filed with the Supreme Court, a few have questioned the constitutionality of Section 375 of the IPC’s marital rape exception.

Section 375 defines rape and lists seven notions of consent that, if violated, constitute rape by a man.

However, there is an important exception: “Sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a dude with his wife, if the wife is not below the age of eighteen, is not rape.”