Sanchit Agarwal and Sujoy Chatterjee talk about the position of wife after marriage in India and laws relating to Marital Rape.
Abstract
Marital refers to rape committed by a husband over his wife. In India it remains exempted by the virtue of the Exception of Marital Rape from the offence of Rape as defined in Section 375 of The Indian Penal Code, 1860. The conspicuous absence of any case laws regarding marital rape in India may lead to an inference that forceful sexual intercourse in a marriage has not been addressed by the Indian judiciary per se. However, a decree of restitution effectively renders a result wherein an unwilling party, who has left the company of the other spouse or withdrawn from his or her society, is forced to cohabit with such spouse for a period of one year. This paper, thereby seeks to present an analysis of the provisions of restitution and the jurisprudence surrounding it which would assist in understanding how the legal position regarding the sexual integrity of a married woman has been shaped in our country and also seeks to build a roadmap for the future of marital laws in India.