Women need legal protection from marital rape: Court

Women need legal protection from marital rape and all kinds of "sexual perversity" by their husbands, a Delhi court has said, while dismissing bail plea of a man who was accused of raping and forcing his wife to indulge in unnatural sex with him.
The woman, a resident of Delhi, has alleged in her FIR that her husband used to rape and commit unnatural sex with her. She said that he used to show her adult videos and also physically hurt her by biting her.
Dismissing the bail plea of the man, Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau said that just because he was the victim's husband, does not mitigate his offence.

"Women have to be protected from all kinds of sexual perversity and merely because the complainant happens to be the wife of the accused, it does not in any manner mitigate the offence keeping in view the nature of the allegations involved," the court said.
"The acts complained of (by the woman) not only constitute an unnatural offence against the order of nature but also bring the alleged acts of the man within amended definition of rape under Section 376 of IPC which unfortunately cannot be invoked due to sole reason of the relationship i.E. The complainant being the wife of the accused and the Indian Law not giving due recognition to marital rape despite there being a desirability and a long standing demand for the same," the judge said.

Under the present law, sexual acts by a man with his wife, who is not under 15 years of age, is not rape.

The woman who had married the accused in 2009, had lodged the FIR earlier this year after she informed her parents about the torture meted out to her.
In his bail application, the man had contended that his wife had lodged the FIR against him on false and frivolous grounds.
However, the judge disagreed with his contention saying, "There is no reported history of any previous matrimonial disputes and even otherwise prima facie there is no reason why a wife would levy such serious allegations relating to sexual perversity against her husband."

"I may observe that in case if what has been alleged by the complainant is correct then the applicant deserves no indulgence," she said in her order.