Meanwhile, on Monday, Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves continued with his rebuttal submissions.
He cited a judgment of the Nepalese Supreme Court, through which the marital rape exception was struck down in Nepal, to argue that the almost all the grounds taken by the Union Government in its 2017 affidavit have been dealt with by the that order.
“The time has come now for such a huge crime to be redressed immediately. There can be no ifs or buts and no qualification or caveats,” he said.
He further submitted that whether the marital rape should carry the same sentencing as that of rape in any other relationship is for the parliament to decided but he stands with the UK commission that there are not various degrees of rape and the punishment for each act has to be the same.
“Rape being the most heinous crime, we cannot agree that there are degrees of rape. But there are people who say there has to be less standards of sentence in case of marital rape. The proper place to argue this point, however, is parliament. Whatever the parliament does will ultimately come to constitutional courts which will decide whether it is permissible or not,” he submitted.
Source: Barandbench
