Supreme Court disputes marital rape exception in criminal law theory

Supreme Court Questions Penal Law on Forced Sexual Intercourse in Marriage

• The Supreme Court questioned the logic behind a penal law that considers wrongful confinement, criminal intimidation, and assault of a wife as offences but not the act of forced sex.
• The question came on the first day of hearing of a batch of petitions seeking criminalisation of non-consensual sexual acts in a marriage as ‘rape’.
• The petitioners argued that protection given to non-consensual sexual acts by a man with his wife violated the woman’s right to bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity.
• The Union government argued that punishing nonconsensual sexual acts in a wedlock and categorising it as rape would impact conjugal relationships and lead to “serious disturbances” in the institution of marriage.
• Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, who heads the three-judge Bench, drew attention to the fact that the definition of rape was not restricted to peno-vaginal sexual intercourse, and even included heinous acts such as insertion of a foreign object into a woman’s body.