|
|  |
|
Legal Needs
| [This Network is not currently active and cannot accept new posts] | | Topics |
|
|
| |
| Jan 17, 2008 2:00 pm |
|
Make your comments on Rape |
| charuhasan
| |
The Delhi High Court Judgment on women's age of consent as sixteen has really opened Pandora’s box. The rationale behind the finding of their Lordships of The Delhi High Court is based on the exception provided under Indian Penal Code in defining rape under section 376. The Exception reads.
“Sexual intercourse by a man with ones own wife, the wife not being under 15 years of age, is not rape.”
Statutory rape comes under the sixth description, which reads.
“ With or without her consent, when she is under sixteen years of age.”
An interpretation of the sixth exception makes it very clear that a man is entitled to have sexual intercourse with his wife against her will once she is above fifteen. By same token a man can sexual intercourse with consent when the girl is above eighteen. Since the penal provisions accept the consent of a girl to have sex as legal once she is sixteen that seems to be the guideline on which the Delhi High Court Judgment is based.
While sec 366A deals with abducting a minor girl from her guardian, nothing stops the parents from giving away a girl under eighteen without her consent. So in all cases of marriage of girl under eighteen the consent to have sex with her is given by the parents. The reasoning of the Delhi High Court seems to be that if the parents can consent to the girl under 16 to marry a man and have sex, why not the girl herself? But the reasoning works against the provisions of sec 366A of the Indian Penal code the age of discretion seems to be eighteen years.
Now let us see what is the remedy for a wife above the age of fifteen if the husband has intercourse against her will, if he cannot be prosecuted for rape. Any use of force becomes an offence under 353 of The Indian Penal Code. There is another provision under 354 I.P.C, which is “assaulting a woman with an intent to outrage her modesty. While modesty is not defined in the Penal Code we cannot claim that there is no modesty for a woman with respect to her husband. Sec 354 does not specifically exonerate a husband as the provisions for rape under sec 375. After all Delhi High court thinks that Parents can make their daughter submit to sex if she is above fifteen, why not the girl herself?
S.Charuhasan
14-10-2005
Private Reply to charuhasan (new win) |
|
| |
|
