The High Court said that the relationship between the couple cannot be termed as rape since the physical relationship happened only after they got married to each other.
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — A Muslim man, accused of raping a 15-year-old girl, recently got a judicial reprieve as the Delhi High Court upheld his acquittal after noting that the girl, also a Muslim, was his wife and he had sexual relationship with her only after they got married to each other.
A division bench of Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Neena Bansal Krishna said that the relationship of the accused with the victim cannot be termed as rape, Bar and Bench reported on Tuesday.
As per Muslim personal law, a Muslim girl over the age of 15 years is competent to enter into a contract of marriage with the person of her choice and sex with such a girl is not considered an offence.
“We find that since the child victim was the wife who was almost fifteen years of age, the physical relationship of the respondent (accused man) with the victim, cannot be termed as rape. The respondent has been rightly acquitted,” the high court observed.
It also agreed with the conclusion of the Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) that in view of the testimony of the child that she got married to the respondent in the month of December 2014 and only thereafter did they have a physical relationship, no offence under Section 6 read with Section 5(1) of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act) was made out.
The court was dealing with an appeal filed by the State against a judgment of acquittal dated November 15, 2016 through which the accused man was acquitted of the offence punishable under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
After considering the facts of the case, the court concluded that there was no ground to grant leave to appeal. The application was, therefore, dismissed.
