Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Friday introduced a Private Member’s Bill to amend the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and strike out India’s entrenched marital rape exception.
“The criminalisation of marital rape is an urgent necessity in India’s legal framework,” he wrote on X Friday, announcing that he had introduced a Private Member’s Bill.
“Marriage cannot negate the woman’s right to grant or deny consent,” he said, adding that India must move from “No Means No” to “Only Yes Means Yes.”
“Every woman deserves the fundamental right to bodily autonomy and dignity within marriage, protections our legal system fails to provide. Marital rape is not about marriage but about violence. The moment for action has arrived,” he said.
Tharoor also released the statement of objects and reasons attached to the bill. It lays out the legal and constitutional basis for reform.
The document says the current law—Section 63 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023—“excludes marital rape from being a punishable offense, allowing men to engage in non-consensual sex with their wives, provided the wife is not under 18 years of age.”
According to the statement, the exception is “rooted in patriarchal notions that view wives as property—a remnant of colonial-era mindsets.”
This gap in the law “has left married women legally defenceless” Tharoor wrote.
The bill argues that the exemption creates a distinction between married and unmarried women, implying that marriage nullifies the idea of consent. It states that this violates women’s rights to dignity, safety, and bodily autonomy.
Citing the National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5), the statement notes that 83 per cent of women aged 18 to 49 who faced sexual violence identified their current husband as the perpetrator. The bill frames this as evidence of how routine sexual violence within marriage is—and how the law fails to recognise it.
The Justice Verma Committee, in its landmark 2013 report after the Delhi gang rape, called for the removal of the marital rape exception, saying it was incompatible with women’s rights. International treaties, including CEDAW, ratified by India, have also urged member states to adopt broader definitions of rape that include marital rape.
Article 21, which protects the Right to Life and Personal Liberty, has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to include dignity, privacy, and bodily autonomy.
Citing Article 253, the bill says Parliament has the power to legislate in line with international conventions, while Article 51 directs the State to respect international law and uphold equality and justice.
“Marriage should be a partnership grounded in mutual respect, consent, and equality,” the statement of Tharoor’s bill says.
Criminalising marital rape, it argued, affirms that consent is a universal right, not a conditional one. It added that factors such as caste, profession, clothing, beliefs, or past sexual conduct can never be used to presume consent. These assumptions “perpetuate gender-based inequality” and violate a woman’s fundamental rights.
Globally, India’s position is becoming increasingly isolated.
Marital rape is outlawed in over 100 countries, including the USA, UK, Australia and South Africa . But India remains among about three dozen countries, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia where the exemption still stands.
Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, originating in 1860, has long contained that sex by a man with his own wife, if she is not a minor, is not rape.
Petitions challenging this provision have been filed repeatedly in Indian courts.
The United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have all raised concerns about India’s refusal to criminalise marital rape.