Karnataka HC does not allow cover of exception in marital rape.

Refusing cover of exception under Section 375 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’), dealing firmly with a married man, accused of beastly sexual assault on his wife and minor daughter and charged with rape and also under POCSO, 2012, upheld the trial Court’s verdict stating, “The exemption of the husband on committal of such assault/rape, in the peculiar facts and circumstances of this case, cannot be absolute, as no exception in law can be so absolute that it becomes a license for commission of crime against society.”

Interestingly, the judgment skirts around the issue of constitutionality of Exception 2 in Section 375 of IPC under consideration before Delhi & Gujarat HC.