The Delhi high court on Monday held that sex without marriage amounted to rape
The court rejected pre-arrest bail to a man who repeatedly had sex with a woman but refused to marry her even after their engagement.
The woman stayed with her fiancé, Nikhil Prasar, in Mumbai for a few days, “where they had fun, and then went to Delhi and stayed in a hotel where they had sex”.
When it came to fixing a date for marriage, however, Nikhil refused, on the grounds that he had learned that she belonged to a different caste.
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He (judge) said it appears that the man did not intend to marry the woman and that was why he did not wait for sex even till his formal engagement with her.
If he were so orthodox and conservative that he broke the marriage owing to caste differences, he should not have hurried in for sexual intercourse before marriage, the justice said.
The court held that if it was not held as rape, it would “result in unscrupulous and mischievous persons taking undue advantage of innocent girls by promising marriage with them”.
Sexual intercourse before marriage amounts to rape or it will result in victimisation or exploitation of innocent girls, justice Jain said.
Sex without marriage is rape? In what mind can a judge make such comment?
The rape laws in this country is in a bad state and needs immediate reforms not even 30% of the rape victims get any justice. Instead of trying to change the law and ensure better mechanism to ensure conviction our honorable court is going about making regressive statement such as this. It is not of the Court or of any body else’ job to play moral police in today’s liberalized society which is constantly embracing human rights. Today we have legalized sexual intercourse between same sex consenting adults, under the PWDV Act we have given recognition to live in couples and even granted protection to violence against women living in with a male partner.
By labeling sex without marriage as rape the court is actually giving a bad name to sexuality on the whole.
We understand that sex without valid consent is rape, every night millions of women are raped by their husbands when he establishes sexual intercourse without her consent. But the Court and law turn blind when it comes to addressing such sexual violence amounting to marital rape. An act of love or passion outside marriage is labeled rape.
I don’t want to go into the question as to why the woman registered a case of rape against this man, she may or may not have ulterior motives, or may be the man actually did rape her. We don’t know. But if the Hon’ble High Court thinks that they have given a judgment in favor of women by calling pre marital sex as rape I will say they have given a huge set back to the very little progress we have made in the difficult struggle of asserting our right to a healthy sexuality.
Updates 1:
On twitter this is becoming an argument. People think obtaining sex with false promise of marriage should amount to rape. I don’t know in which century do these people live. Sex is not a slice of cake that a woman gives and a man obtains, it is something two people do together. It is an act of pleasure, passion and love. A woman wants and enjoys it as much as a man does. Our patriarchal society need to get over this stupid assumption that all woman are bechaari innocent girls who only do sex because somebody conned them into it.
Dr Sanjukta Basu 
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