Supreme Court seeks Centre's response on criminalizing marital rape

New Delhi: On criminalizing marital rape, the Supreme Court asked for the Centre's response on a set of petitions. On Monday, a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala directed the Centre to file its response by February 15, PTI reported.

The court also decided to start the final hearing on the matter on March 21.

One of the pleas concerning the issue was after a Delhi High Court-split verdict pronounced on May 11 last year. The plea was filed by Khushboo Saifi.

Then the Delhi HC bench of Justices Rajiv Shakdher and Justice C Hari Shankar granted the petitioner a certificate of leave so that she could appeal at the Supreme Court. The bench had noted then that the issue requires the top court's decision since it involves substantial questions of law.

PTI writes that while Justice Shakdher, who headed the division bench, favoured striking down the marital rape exception for being "unconstitutional" and said it would be "tragic if a married woman's call for justice is not heard even after 162 years" since the enactment of the IPC, Justice Shankar said the exception under the rape law is not "unconstitutional and was based on an intelligible differentia".

Another plea was filed by a man against the Karnataka High Court verdict, who was prosecuted for allegedly raping his wife. The HC said that exempting a husband from the allegation of rape and unnatural sex with his wife runs against Article 14 (equality before the law) of the Constitution.

There are other pleas have also been filed in the Supreme Court on the issue.

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.