Law should recognise rape by husband as crime, says court

New Delhi, Oct 2: A trial court on Thursday said that there is an urgent need to recognize marital rape as a crime in India as a number of women in the country suffer due to this.

The court rejected the bail application of a man who is accused of raping and forcing his wife for unnatural sex and was quoted as saying in TOI, "Non-recognition of marital rape in our nation set upon the bedrock of equality is gross double standard and hypocrisy in law which is central to the subordination and subjugation of women...it is rape when a man forces himself sexually upon a woman whether he has a licence by marriage law to do it or not. It is the need of hour to seriously recognize and address this problem."

Additional sessions judge Kamini Lau said that currently, the legal system does not have any provision to deal with marital rape as an offence except when a man rapes his wife whose age is below 15 years.

The court stressed on criminalizing marital rape and also said that absence of such provisions in the legal system exposes "double standards and hypocrisy in law".

"As far as India is concerned, marital rape is not covered by the ordinary rape laws and is a form of non- criminal domestic violence," the court said.

As per the TOI report, "The court was hearing a complaint filed by a woman who alleged that her husband used to rape and commit unnatural sex with her. She further said that the man showed her adult videos and bit her."

Denying bail to the man, the court said, "There appears to be something seriously wrong with the accused and our society with sexual perversity pervading the system where lakhs of women suffer this kind of sexual violence and perversity in silence".

OneIndia News