High court’s marital rape exceptionalism
The marital rape exception cannot be used to obfuscate such a serious crime since this could give men the licence to brutalise their wives at will
Under Indian laws, if a person commits actions that result in the death of another person, they are liable to be punished for a minimum of five years in jail and a maximum of life imprisonment. But a 40-year-old man who allegedly indulged in brutal unnatural sex with his wife, which eventually led to her death, found himself exonerated by the Chhattisgarh high court (HC) this week because a man cannot be prosecuted for marital rape in India. Despite his conviction by a lower court, the Chhattisgarh HC found it fit to acquit the man of rape, unnatural sex and culpable homicide and order his immediate release — all because Exception 2 under Section 375 of IPC clears a husband from prosecution for raping his wife. The judgment by justice Narendra Kumar Vyas concluded that if the wife is not below 15, the absence of consent of the wife “loses its importance”.
This is a miscarriage of justice in a case involving the death of a person. The marital rape exception cannot be used to obfuscate such a serious crime since this could give men the licence to brutalise their wives at will. It violates the principles of natural justice and is an affront to rational jurisprudence. Even people who feel the marital rape debate is a complex one must surely acknowledge that a provision that absolves a person of any consequences after the death of their partner only sullies the institution of marriage, not protect its sanctity. In addition, there are serious questions about whether the HC judgment is at odds with a 2017 ruling by the Supreme Court regarding the 15-year age limit. Irrespective of whether the marital rape case is settled by the apex court — and it should consider doing so at the earliest — this verdict cannot be allowed to stand. The top court must intervene.