The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Centre and others on petitions challenging the Delhi High Court’s split verdict on the issue of marital rape, reported Live Law.

The top court agreed to examine the issue and posted the matter for hearing in February 2023. It also clubbed all matters relating to the marital rape issue pending before it.

Also Read: Delhi HC delivers split verdict in pleas to criminalise marital rape, matter referred to Supreme Court

The notice was issued by a Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Ajay Rastogi and B V Nagarathna.

Advocate Karuna Nandy, appearing for one of the petitioners, the All India Democratic Women’s Association, had requested that the matter be decided by the Supreme Court. Senior advocate Gopal Shankarnarayan said that the matter is pending for the past three years. The court had then agreed to hear it next February.

On May 11 this year, the Delhi High Court delivered a split verdict on the petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the exception in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that exempts men from being prosecuted for marital rape.

Two judges on the bench – Justices Rajiv Shakdher and C Hari Shankar – who were hearing the matter, had differed on whether the provision should be struck down or not. While Justice Shakdher said that Section 375 is unconstitutional, while Justice Shakdher had opined that the exception is based on “intelligible differentia”.

Also Read: Marital rape: Delhi HC says married parties have right to expect sexual relationship, unlike unmarried couples

The provision in question here is Section 375 of the IPC that defines rape, but has an exception for sexual intercourse between a married couple. The exception reads, “Sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape.”

The judgment had come on petitions filed by RIT Foundation and the All India Democratic Women’s Association, as well as two individuals, who had challenged the constitutional validity of the second exception to Section 375 of the IPC.

The top court had in a 2017 verdict read down this exception to increase the age of consent for sexual intercourse within marriages from 15 years to 18 years. However, the matter dealt with child marriage, and not with the wider issue of marital rape.