No privilege for husband over wife: K'taka HC upholds rape charges
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Bengaluru: Invoking the rape law, the Karnataka High Court ruled that if rape committed even by a husband it should be treated as rape and the punishment underlined in the law for rape is applicable to him also.
The court observed this while refusing to squash rape charges filed by a wife against her husband, which is expected to trigger a debate on marital rape for defying the exception in law.
A single-judge bench of Justice M Nagaprasanna of the Karnataka High Court also ruled that the charges under section 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code against the accused husband will exist.
The judge also lashed out at the old age thought of giving special privilege to husbands over wives in the marital system. "The age-old thought and tradition that the husbands are the rulers of their wives, their body, mind and soul should be effaced. It is only on this archaic, regressive and preconceived notion, the cases of this kind are mushrooming in the nation," the court said.
Justice Nagaprasanna viewed that rape is rape, whether it committed either by husband or anyone else. The case on which the court has made it observation pertained to a couple who had married in 2006.
A few years after their marriage, the relationship got strained, prompting the woman to file a case against her husband, accusing him of domestic violence and sexually abusing their daughter. The FIR included charges under sections 506, 498A, 323, and 377 and the POCSO Act.
The husband approached the court seeking the rape charges to be squashed under the IPC Section 375, which makes a crucial exemption that "Sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under eighteen years of age, is not rape."
The "institution of marriage does not confer, cannot confer and in my considered view, should not be construed to confer, any special male privilege or a licence for unleashing of a brutal beast. If it is punishable to a man, it should be punishable to a man, albeit, the man being a husband," Justice Nagaprasanna said.
"A brutal act of sexual assault on the wife, against her consent, albeit by the husband, cannot but be termed to be a rape. Such sexual assault by a husband on his wife will have grave consequences on the mental sheet of the wife, it has both psychological and physiological impact on her. Such acts of husbands scar the soul of the wives. It is, therefore, imperative for the lawmakers to now hear the voices of silence," the court said.
