Appeal filed in SC against split verdict in marital rape case

An appeal has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the Delhi high court's split verdict on the issue of criminalisation of marital rape on a batch of petitions challenging the exception in the law that exempts husbands from being prosecuted for non-consensual sexual intercourse with their wives.

The appeal has been filed by Khushboo Saifi, one of the petitioners before the high court.

The high court on May 11 had delivered a split verdict on the issue.

However, both the judges -- Justice Rajiv Shakdher and Justice C Hari Shankar -- on the bench concurred with each other for granting a certificate of leave to appeal to the Supreme Court in the matter as it involves substantial questions of law which requires a decision from the top court.          

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".

The petitioners had challenged the constitutionality of the marital rape exception under Section 375 IPC (rape) on grounds that it discriminated against married women who are sexually assaulted by their husbands.           

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.

The bench delivered a 393-page split verdict in the matter. 

Justice Shakdher, in the 192 pages penned by him, regretted that he was not able to persuade Justice Shankar to his point of view and said “he, perhaps, hears a beat of a different drummer. I respect that”.

Justice Shankar, who gave dissenting views in the 200 pages written by him, said the challenge to the vires of the second exception to Section 375 and Section 376B of the IPC and Section 198B of the Code of Criminal Procedure, as raised in these petitions, must fail.

He said it remained a matter of lasting regret that their differences, regarding the outcome of these proceedings, appear irreconcilable.

Justice Shakdher also said, "To the petitioners and their ilk I would say it may seem that you plough a lonely furrow today but it will change, if not now, someday. To the naysayers, I would say that every dissent adds flavour and acuteness to the debate at hand, which assists the next court, if nothing else, in arriving at a conclusion which is closer to justice and truth.”

The court's verdict came on PILs filed in 2015 and 2017 by NGOs RIT Foundation, All India Democratic Women's Association, a man and a woman seeking striking down of the exception granted to husbands under the Indian rape law.