Guwahati: The Supreme Court ordered the Centre to respond to the petitions that questioned the constitutionality of Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code’s Exception 2 regarding marital rape on Monday.
In accordance with Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code which defines rape, sexual contact between a man and his wife is not considered rape unless the wife is under the age of 15.
The Centre was requested by a panel led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud to respond to the several petitions that questioned the constitutionality of the exception for marital rape.
The court was also advised by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta that the concerns surrounding the marital rape exception would have social repercussions and that a few months prior, the states had been invited to provide their input on the subject. SG Mehta claimed that the problem has social implications in addition to legal ones.
The case was scheduled for further hearing by the court in March.
The court further instructed all attorneys to work with Pooja Dhar and Jaikriti Jadeja, who had been designated as nodal counsel, to compile a standard compilation of indexes and presentations that would be relied upon.
Several pleas involving allegations of marital rape are currently being heard in court. The Karnataka High Court’s decision to not throw out a rape charge against a man accused of raping and using his wife as a sex slave is the subject of one petition.
Another petition called for the repeal of Section 375’s Exception 2, which shields husbands from legal consequences for having sex with their wives against their will. Ruth Manorama, an activist, filed the petition with the help of record-keeping attorney Ruchira Goel.
The Supreme Court had already received a petition from the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), among others, challenging the Delhi High Court’s split decision on the criminalization of marital rape.
On May 12, 2022, a two-judge panel of the Delhi High Court issued a split decision on the question of criminalising marital rape. Justice Hari Shankar disagreed with the ruling and stated that Exception 2 to Section 375 does not violate the Constitution as it is founded on comprehensible differences, while Justice Rajiv Shakdher of the Delhi High Court decides in favour of criminalising.
Attorney Karuna Nundy represented AIDWA, while attorney Rahul Narayan filed the plea on the organization’s behalf.The exception for marital rape, according to AIDWA, is harmful and goes against the intent of rape laws, which categorically forbid unconsented sexual conduct. The argument made in the plea was that it elevates the privacy of a marriage above the rights of the wife in the marriage.
According to the petition, the Constitution’s Articles 14, 19(1)(a) and 21 are all violated by the Marital Rape Exception.