BENGALURU : The protection granted to a man from rape charges levelled by his wife is not absolute, the high court said on Wednesday.
The exemption to a husband committing assault/rape of his wife, given the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case on hand, cannot be absolute, as no exemption in law can be so absolute that it becomes a licence for commission of crime against society, justice M Nagaprasanna noted.
The judge declined to interfere with the proceedings initiated against the accused vis-a-vis charges of rape, cruelty, criminal intimidation and also offences under sections 29 and 30 of Pocso Act in connection with alleged sexual acts committed against his daughter.
“. . . it is for the legislature to dwell upon the issue and consider tinkering with the exemption. This court is not pronouncing upon whether marital rape should be recognised as an offence or the exception be taken away by the legislature. It is for the legislature, on analysis of manifold circumstances and ramifications to consider the aforesaid issue. This court is concerned only with the charge of rape being framed upon the husband accused of raping his wife,” the judge said.
The couple got married on June 20, 2006, at Bhubaneswar in Odisha. They stayed in various parts of the country. The woman filed a complaint against the husband on March 21, 2017 following alleged physical and mental torture to her and the child. He was working in Bengaluru then.
In her complaint, the woman described herself as having become a ‘sex slave’ to him. “I have become a sex slave to my husband right from the day of marriage. I was compelled and forced to have unnatural anal sex and oral sex by imitating sex films. My husband did not spare me from forcible sex even after pregnancy . . . he forced me to perform all unnatural sex acts in front of my daughter. I am in untold pain after knowing that my husband had sexually harassed my daughter also. I do not want any daughter or any mother to undergo the sufferings we have suffered,” her complaint read.
Police filed a chargesheet against the man under sections 498A, 354, 376 and 506 of the IPC and sections 5(m) and (l) r/w section 6 of the Pocso Act-2012. Though his parents were also chargesheeted, they were later discharged.
Pointing out that the perusal of the complaint sends a chilling effect on any human being, the judge said that the complaint appeared to be an outburst of a wife who tolerated the brutal acts of the petitioner. “It is akin to the eruption of a dormant volcano. In the teeth of the facts, as narrated in the complaint, in my considered view, no fault can be found with the sessions judge taking cognizance of the offences punishable under Section 376 of IPC and framing a charge to that effect,” the judgeobserved.
“For ages, man donning the robes of a husband has used the wife as his chattel, notwithstanding his existence because of a woman. The age-old thought and tradition that husbands are the rulers of their wives, their body, mind and soul should be effaced,” the judge has observed.
