The Supreme Court has rejected a petition seeking to make laws on rape gender-neutral.
A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra maintained that laws on rape, sexual harassment, stalking, voyeurism, “outraging one’s modesty”are "affirmative provisions for the protection of women and in their favour,” the Live Law reported.
On the plea filed by a lawyer of the apex court, the bench said it was an 'imaginative petition', adding that the authority to change the legislation lies with the parliament.
“Crime has no gender and neither should our laws. Women commit crime for the same reasons that men do. The law does not and should not distinguish between criminals and every person who has committed an offence is liable to punishment under the Code, " the report quoted petitioner Rishi Malhotra as saying.
“A glance on the above-mentioned sections would demonstrate categorically that it is presumed that all offences under the said sections would always be committed by an accused who happens to be a ‘man’ and the victim would always be a ‘woman’”, he added saying.
The Supreme Court has rejected the petition, saying there are valid classification for crime committed by a woman on a man.
“We are not saying a woman cannot rape a man but these come under a different offence under IPC”, CJI Misra said.
A plea similar to this was made in the Supreme Court earlier this year that challenged the constitutional validity of adultery laws in the country, which only punishes married man for having extra-martial sexual relations with another married woman.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud took a prima facie view that though the criminal law proceeds on "gender neutrality", the concept was absent in Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which deals with the offence of adultery and referred the matter to the larger bench.
