Delhi High Court has upheld acquittal of a Muslim man accused of raping his 15-year-old wife, saying the couple's physical relationship cannot be termed as rape.
Refusing to entertain the prosecution's appeal against a trial court's ruling which had declared the Muslim man not guilty of raping his second wife, the two-judge bench said he has been rightly acquitted.
"The additional sessions judge had rightly observed that in view of the testimony of the child that she got married to the respondent (man) in the month of December, 2014 and only thereafter did they have physical relationship, no offence under Section 6 read with Section 5(1) of POCSO Act was made out and the respondent was rightly acquitted," said Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Neena Bansal Krishna.
"We find that since the child victim was the wife who was almost fifteen years of age, the physical relationship of the respondent with the victim, cannot be termed as rape. The respondent has been rightly acquitted," the court said.
According to Muslim personal law, a girl, on attaining puberty or age of 15 years and above, can marry and choose a suitable match, irrespective of the Pocso Act. However, under the exception given in Section 375 (rape) of the IPC, sexual intercourse, or sexual acts by a man with his wife, the wife not being under 15 years, is not rape.
According to the prosecution, a rape case was lodged against the man in 2015 on the complaint of the girl's mother.
However, the girl said the fact that she had got married to the man was not known to her mother, who lodged a complaint with the police on discovering that she was pregnant.
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