The Supreme Court’s historic judgement reading down exception to the rape laws would now entail a minimum punishment of seven years jail to a man for having sex with his wife who is between 15 and 18 years of age.
The landmark verdict has also recognised “marital rape of a girl child between 15 and 18 years of age”.
“Marital rape of a girl child is effectively nothing but aggravated penetrative sexual assault and there is no reason why it should not be punishable under the provisions of the IPC. Therefore, it does appear that only a notional or linguistic distinction is sought to be made between rape and penetrative sexual assault and rape of a married girl child and aggravated penetrative sexual assault,” the court observed.
(Published 11 October 2017, 20:04 IST)
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