Different aspects of marital rape in India and the legal scenario

Submitted by asandil on 5/21/2014

Marital Rape refers to unwanted intercourse by a man with his wife acquired by energy, use of power, or physical brutality, or when she is unable to give assent for the sexual act. It is a non-consensual demonstration of rough behaviour by a spouse against the wife in which she is physically and sexually misused.

Approximations have alarmingly stated that every 6 hours; a young married woman is burnt or beaten to death, or driven to suicide from emotional abuse by her husband. As per The UN Population Fund, more than 2/3rds of married women in India in the age group of 15 to 49 are beaten, raped or forced to have sex with their husbands.

A recent ruling by a Delhi Court has affirmed that assault laws don’t make a difference if the victim is legitimately married. The judge, Virender Baht, decided that regardless of the possibility that the spouse constrained non-consensual sex on his wife, it can’t be called assault and no culpability could be affixed upon the denounced. This can be said the result of an immense crevice in Indian assault laws.

In case, the couple is lawfully wedded, the husband can assault his wife by demanding sexual favours and she will have to be responsible for positive response. This is after the new Anti-Rape Bill was passed by government which included stricter laws and disciplines for attackers after the ruthless pack assault that brutally murdered a 23 year-old paramedical students.

Yet the administration did include conjugal assault in the bill. The disappointment to criminalize conjugal assault is a terrible oversight that considers numerous individuals’ concerns of conjugal assault. This is an extraordinary concern, particularly in a nation where organized relational unions are the standard and more than 47% of young girls are wedded before they are 18.

With India’s tyke spouse issue, this terrible crevice in equity viably permits a man to over and again assault a minor without dread of legitimate activity against him. As assault generally structures a piece of domesticated ill-use, a lady won’t have the capacity to blame an oppressive spouse for assault.

Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/marital-rape-ruling-highlights-indias-problem-with-consent

If you need any further information or clarification in this regard, please feel free to contact us or post your queries on our website where one of our exclusively appointed legal experts will help you more: https://delhi-lawyers.in/criminal-lawyers-in-delhi