Supreme Court (Files)
The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its verdict on a plea challenging the exception allowed in IPC Section 375 that says a man’s sexual acts with his wife not aged under 15 is not rape. An NGO, Independent Thought, had filed the petition saying the age of consent is 18. It has argued hence sex in cases of child marriage in which a girl is aged between 15 and 18 even with consent will amount to rape.
Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta asked the Centre how Parliament could create the exception when the age of consent is 18. “We do not want to go into the aspect of marital rape. That is for Parliament to see if they want to increase or decrease the age of consent. But once Parliament decided that we have fixed 18 years as the age of consent, can they carve out an exception like this.’’ The Centre told the court if the exception goes, then it would open up “the arena of marital rape which does not exist in India’’. “After due thought and consideration, Parliament decided to keep it (exception) intact,” the Centre’s lawyer said, while referring to high court verdicts in which 15 years was held to be “acceptable” age for
marriage.
The court observed child marriages cannot go on just because the illegal practice was assumed to be legal and has been going.
