The apex court also agreed to examine the pleas in the matter and listed the case for hearing in February next year.
Supreme Court of India. ANI
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Centre and others on pleas challenging the Delhi High Court’s split verdict on the issue of criminalising marital rape.
The apex court also agreed to examine the pleas in the matter and listed the case for hearing in February next year.
Earlier this year, the Delhi High Court began hearing final arguments in a series of public interest litigations challenging the “marital rape exception” clause in Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
In May, the high court delivered its judgment – which was a split verdict. The two-judge bench of justice Rajiv Shakdher and justice C Harishanker gave dissenting judgments.
While Justice Shakdher favoured striking down the exception in the law that grants protection to husbands from being prosecuted for non-consensual sexual intercourse with their wives, Justice C Harishanker refused to hold it unconstitutional.
Under the exception given in Section 375 of the IPC, sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his wife, the wife not being minor, is not rape.
The high court’s verdict had come on PILs filed by NGOs RIT Foundation and All India Democratic Women’s Association seeking striking down of the exception granted to husbands under the Indian rape law.
With inputs from agencies
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