A two-judge bench of Delhi High Court pronounced split verdict on criminalising marital rape on Wednesday, leaving the law unchanged for now. Justice Rajiv Shakdher ruled in favour of criminalising marital rape while Justice Hari Shankar disagreed.
Justice Shankar held that Exception 2 to Section 375 doesn’t violate Constitution as it’s based on intelligible different.
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.
According to the order passed by Justice Rajiv Shakdher, husbands can be held criminally liable for sexual relations without the consent of the wife while Justice C Harishankar showed disagreement with this view.
The much-debated issue of criminalising marital rape will go to the Supreme Court now that the two-judge bench of the Delhi High Court failed to come to a consensus on their verdict.
The petitioners in the case 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.
The Delhi High Court had on February 27 given the Centre two weeks to articulate its stand on criminalisation of marital rape.
The central government, however, had sought more time, which was refused by the judges who said that it was not possible to defer a case endlessly.
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