New Delhi: A Delhi court has ruled that sex between a husband and wife, “even if forcible, is not rape.”
The judge’s decision, which was made public Saturday, upheld section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, which does not recognize “sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age,” as rape.
Last October, a Delhi woman filed a complaint against a man she accused of drugging her, abducting her and taking her to Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, to register their marriage. Afterward, she told the court, he raped her.
The judge in the case wrote that there was “no clinching or convincing evidence on record to show that the accused had administered any stupefying substance.”
The man accused in the case said the couple was married in 2011 at the woman’s home in Delhi in the presence of her family, and that they had decided to register with the court only last year on the insistence of the woman. He also said, according to court documents, that the rape complaint was filed by the woman under pressure from her family members, who were not in favour of their marriage.
The ruling in the case was issued by a special fast-track court established after a December 16, 2012, gang rape that sparked widespread protests and led to growing demands for better laws to prevent violence against women.
Last March, the Indian parliament passed a series of amendments to enact stricter penalties for crimes against women but overlooked a longstanding demand by women’s rights activists to make marital rape a crime…
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