Marital Rape Needn’t Be An Offence: Ex-CJI Dipak Misra

Bhubaneswar: Former Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra on Monday said he held the “personal view” that marital rape in India should not be made a crime or it would create “absolute anarchy” in families.

Deccan Herald quoted Misra as saying, “I don’t think that marital rape should be regarded as an offence in India, because it will create absolute anarchy in families and our country is sustaining itself because of the family platform which upholds family values.”

Misra made the remarks at a conference organised by a Bengaluru-based law school.

Misra reportedly said that the idea of criminalising marital rape was borrowed from other nations and did not apply to India.

The Times of India reported that Misra made the remarks in reply to a question by a first-year LLB student: “Don’t you think the rape laws in India must be amended? Shouldn’t rape laws be made gender neutral and marital rape also be considered a crime?”

Before he stepped down as CJI in October 2018, Justice Misra had delivered some landmark judgments. A five-judge bench headed by him had delivered the historic ruling on Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, decriminalising homosexuality.

In 2015, Misra was part of a two-judge bench that held that in a case of rape or attempt to rape, the conception of compromise would go against a woman’s “honour”.