'Rape is a rape, be it performed by a man the ‘husband' on his 'wife': Karnataka HC

The  Karnataka High Court Wednesday denied quashing rape charges filled by a wife on his husband. The court said “A man is a man; an act is an act; rape is a rape, be it performed by a man the ‘husband’ on the woman ‘wife’,” a single-judge bench of Justice M Nagaprasanna of the Karnataka High Court said. The “age-old…regressive” thought that “husbands are the rulers of their wives, their body, mind, and soul should be effaced."

The court has also ordered the man to face trial for rape charges brought by his wife. While the man moved to High Court after a trial court took cognizance of him under Section 376 (rape).

Section 376 (rape) states  “Sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his wife, the wife not being under eighteen years of age, is not rape.”

In the year 2018 similar case had come to light in Gujarat court in which a married man sought quashing of rape case filed by his wife against him. But the Gujarat High Court quashed the FIR to remove the rape charges with lengthy reasoning. 

The “institution of marriage does not confer, cannot confer and in my considered view, should not be construed to confer, any special male privilege or a license for unleashing of a brutal beast. If it is punishable to a man, it should be punishable to a man albeit, the man being a husband,” Justice Nagaprasanna said.

“A brutal act of sexual assault on the wife, against her consent, albeit by the husband, cannot but be termed to be a rape. Such sexual assault by a husband on his wife will have grave consequences on the mental sheet of the wife, it has both psychological and physiological impacts on her. Such acts of husbands scar the soul of the wives. It is, therefore, imperative for the lawmakers to now hear the voices of silence,” the court said.