Marital rape victim be treated equally with others: Delhi Court

, Mar 4: A victim of marital sexual abuse cannot be discriminated against only because she is the wife of the offender and has to be treated as any other rape victim, a Delhi court has observed while denying bail to a man accused of sodomising his pregnant wife.

The court said though the legislature is yet to take a "serious note" of rampant cases of marital sexual abuse which the women in the country suffer silently, it does not mean that "a battered wife, who has been sexually abused and has invoked the legal system, is not entitled to any State assistance which is already available to other victims of".

Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau directed the Delhi government to take responsibility and take care of the woman, a resident of Keshav Puram here, who has lodged a case against her husband for allegedly forcing her to establish sexual relations with him against the order of the nature after consuming alcohol even when she was pregnant.

"She is the responsibility of the State and is required to be taken care of just as any other victim of aggravated sexual assault and abuse and the State cannot abdicate its responsibility and she cannot be discriminated only because she happens to be the wife of the sexual aggressor," the court said.

While refusing to grant bail to the man, the court noted that the extent of his mental perversity was demonstrated from the fact that he did not even spare his nine-year-old son and polluted the mind of the child by boasting to him about the manner in which he used to make sexual relations against the order of nature with the victim.

"How can such a person be treated with leniency and that too when his wife who has suffered this torture for last more than nine years is in an advance stage of pregnancy?

Allegations made against him are serious. At this stage, his release is neither advisable nor warranted. Merely because the victim now wants the accused to be out does not mean that the court is obligated to oblige. The application for grant of bail is hereby dismissed," the judge said.

PTI