An appeal has been filed in the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court’s split verdict on a bunch of pleas seeking to criminalise marital rape.
Khushboo Saifi moved the appeal through her counsel days after the high court last week gave the verdict while referring the matter to the Supreme Court for an authoritative decision.
Justice Rajiv Shakdher of the high court said the exception in rape laws that insulates husbands is violative of the Constitution. He added the exception amounts to giving recognition to the abominable Common Law Doctrine that “a married woman is nothing but chattel who loses her sexual agency once she enters matrimony”. Justice C Hari Shankar differed and said the exception does not violate any law and is not unconstitutional.
Both the judges, despite dissenting views on the criminalisation of marital rape, allowed the parties to appeal to the Supreme Court, saying the issue involved a substantial question of law.
Exception 2 of Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code decriminalises marital rape and mandates that sexual intercourse by a man with his wife aged above 18 is not rape.
