The Supreme Court on January 16 asked the Centre to file a reply on petitions challenging the constitutional validity of exception to marital rape issue.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the top court that the issue would have social ramifications and a few months ago they had asked States to share their inputs on the matter.
Explained | Marital rape in India: The history of the legal exception
In May 2022, the Delhi High Court delivered a split verdict on decriminalising marital rape in the country. While Justice Rajiv Shakdher struck down Exception 2 of the Indian Penal Code’s Section 375 that decriminalised rape within marriage, Justice C. Hari Shankar upheld its validity. Exception 2 of Section 375 states that “sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape”. In October 2017, the Supreme Court of India increased the age to 18 years.
The issue focuses on the exception in rape law in the Indian Penal Code which dismisses the idea of rape within marriage. The questions raised include whether or not a married woman has bodily autonomy. In short, whether a husband should accept that his wife’s “no means no”, and any transgression would amount to rape.