Husband convicted of wife’s rape freed by Indian court

BILASPUR: The Chhattisgargh High Court overturned a rape conviction on Wednesday, freeing a man who had been imprisoned for raping his wife, who was a minor, and causing injuries which resulted in her death.

The 40-year-old man whose immediate release from prison has been ordered by the court, was arrested two years ago on charges under three different sections of the Indian Penal Code. This included section 376 which relates to punishment for rape rape, section 377 which relates to unnatural sex, and section 304, culpable homicide. The man had raped a now deceased minor.

He was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for ten years. Rigorous imprisonment is defined as imprisonment with hard labour by section 53 of the Indian Penal Code.

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Justice Narendra Kumar Vyas stated that the absence of consent “loses its importance” if the wife’s age is not below 15. Specifically, the high court’s decision cites exception 2 of section 375 of the Indian Penal Code which relates to rape. The exception states that “sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape.”

However, the decision by the high court seemingly ignores a 2017 supreme court ruling in which the two-judge bench comprised of Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta raised the age in the exception from 15 to 18. The judges cited that the exception, as previously written, created a classification between unmarried and married minor girls to allow sexual violence, and thus violated articles 14, 15, and 21 of India’s constitution. However, the supreme courts judicial interpretation was ignored by Justice Narendra Kumar Vyas.

The defence also stated that conviction was based solely on the wife’s declaration before her death, in which she stated that the injuries she suffered, and subsequently died from, were caused from being forced to have sex with her husband. Indian media also stated that the defence contested the deceased wife’s cause of death, citing two witness testimonies which claimed the wife suffered from piles since her first childbirth.

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