Marital Rape Exception — Minor Wives · 11 October 2017
Independent Thought v. Union of India: Supreme Court Reads Down the Marital Rape Exception for Minors
Supreme Court of India · (2017) 10 SCC 800; AIR 2017 SC 4904
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A registered NGO filed a writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution challenging Exception 2 to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, which excluded sexual intercourse or acts by a man with his own wife, provided she was not below fifteen years of age, from the definition of rape. Since the general age of consent under Indian law is eighteen, the exception created a distinction between married and unmarried girls between fifteen and eighteen years of age — sexual intercourse with an unmarried girl in that age group was rape, while the same act with a married girl of the same age was not.
The Supreme Court held that this distinction was arbitrary and could not be sustained, and read down Exception 2 to Section 375 IPC so that sexual intercourse with a wife below eighteen years of age is now treated as rape under the provision, regardless of her marital status. The Court clarified that its ruling was confined to this class of minor wives and did not otherwise address the separate question of marital rape involving adult wives, which remained governed by the exception as applicable to marriages between adults.
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