SC to decide hearing date tomorrow

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to immediately defer the hearing in the batch of petitions challenging the marital rape exception. The Court rejected the request to postpone the hearing till November.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant , Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana stated that it will hear the Union government on Wednesday before fixing a date for final arguments.

The batch of matters before the top court stems primarily from a May 2022 split verdict of the Delhi High Court. While Justice Rajiv Shakdher had held Exception 2 to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (which immunises non-consensual sexual acts by a husband against his adult wife) to be unconstitutional, Justice C Hari Shankar upheld the exception, ruling that the legislature’s classification was based on intelligible differentia.