The Supreme Court on Monday told a petitioner to approach Delhi High Court for redressal of her plea seeking a direction to Centre to frame proper laws pertaining to marital rape as a ground of divorce.
The plea filed by Anuja Kapur, who is also a lawyer seeks of guidelines for filing of FIRs in marital rape cases.
Kapur contended in the plea that registration of FIRs in marital rape were crucial to protect marital women’s fundamental right to live with self-respect.
Earlier, Gujarat High Court in a judgment had ruled that “Marital rape was not an offence”.
“The husband cannot be prosecuted for the offence of rape punishable under Section 376 of the IPC at the instance of his wife as the marital rape is not covered under Section 375 of IPC… which provides that sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under 18 years of age, is not rape,” the Gujarat HC had ruled. However, it had said “a wife can initiate proceedings against her husband for unnatural sex under Section 377 of the IPC”.
—India Legal Bureau