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The Centre on Wednesday defended the exception to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code which doesn’t penalise intercourse or sexual act by a man with his wife not below 15 years for rape, justifying that the exception in the law was meant to protect the ‘institution of marriage’.
The Supreme Court on its part also said that forced marital intercourse and sexual acts as part of the offence of rape in penal law has been extensively debated and now it cannot be considered a criminal act.
Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which defines the offence of rape, has an exception clause that says the intercourse or sexual act by a man with his wife not below 15 years, is not a rape.
The apex court, however, sought to know as to whether Parliament debated the aspect of protecting married girls, between the age group of 15-18 years, from the forced sexual acts by their spouses.
A bench of justices MB Lokur and Deepak Gupta said:
The bench observed:
It said, similarly, a problem arises when a girl, under 18 years of age, elopes and engages in consensual sexual activity, the male gets booked for rape.
“In these cases, we do have problem if look at various aspects,” the bench said as it asked the Centre to apprise it about the number of prosecutions under the Child Marriage Act for past three years in three weeks.
The bench was hearing a plea questioning the constitutionality of a provision permitting a man to have physical relationship with his wife even if she is aged between 15 and 18.
The apex court said according to prevailing law, if a man has physical intercourse with a girl under 15 years of age, it is termed as rape irrespective of “consent or no consent” and if she is below 18 years of age, but more than 15 and married, then no offence of rape is made out.
(This article has been edited for length)
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