Men's NGO opposes plea in HC seeking to make marital rape an offence

An NGO's plea in the Delhi High Court seeking to make marital rape an offence was today opposed by another NGO, run by a group of men, which said that married women have been given adequate protection under the law against sexual violence by their husbands.

NGO Men Welfare Trust claimed that exception in Section 375 of the IPC, which says intercourse or a sexual act by a man with his wife is not rape, is "not unconstitutional" and setting it aside will create more injustice.

It was opposing the petitions filed by NGO RIT Foundation and the All India Democratic Women's Association, which have challenged the constitutionality of Section 375 (which defines rape) of the IPC on the ground that it discriminated against married women being sexually assaulted by their husbands.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar posed various questions to the trust's representatives, who were made intervenors in the matter, and asked whether their stand was that a husband has a right to perpetrate sexual offence on his wife and could he force sex on his spouse?
When NGO Men Welfare Trust said that rape by a husband and a third person cannot be put on a same pedestal, the bench shot back, saying "a rape is a rape. Is it that if you are married, it is okay but if you are not, then it's a rape? If an uncle or grandfather sexually assaults a woman or a girl, it is covered under the offence of rape."