The Delhi High Court on Monday sought the government’s response on PIL challenging a provision in the penal law, which does not consider sexual intercourse of a man with his minor wife as rape.
A Bench of Chief Justice G. Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath agreed to examine the issue, which it had disposed of in July 2015, after the government told the court that the ground raised in this case was different from the plea pending before the apex court.
On hearing this, the court issued notice to the Centre and asked it to file its reply to the review plea before March 23.
Earlier, the court had disposed of a plea filed by an NGO on the ground that >Supreme Court was already seized with the issue and hence it was not inclined to entertain this writ petition.
Thereafter, the NGO had filed a petition seeking review of a July 8, 2015, order of the court.
The Centre had earlier informed the court that the NGO’s plea highlighting the exception in Section 375 of the IPC, which states that sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, who is not under 15 years of age, is not rape, was pending for consideration before the Supreme Court.
