It also questioned the constitutional validity of Sections 375 and 376 of the Indian Penal Code and sought gender-neutral rape provisions
A petition filed in the Delhi High Court (HC) has sought replacement of the current rape laws with their gender neutral versions. The PIL, filed by Sanjjiiv Kkumaar, has suggested that India did have gender-neutral rape laws for 58 days — from February 3, 2013 to April 1, 2013 — which were then replaced with gender-specific provisions.
On Wednesday, a Bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar issued a notice to the Centre, regarding the PIL that questioned the gender neutrality of rape laws in India. It also questioned the constitutional validity of Sections 375 and 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sought gender-neutral rape provisions.
At present, rape laws in India assume men as the sole perpetrators and women as the sole victims.
"…it becomes very difficult to accept that there is a single reality in rape; that is, men rape women and men can never be victimised, or if they are, this act has a meaning so different for men that it cannot be labelled as rape," the over 100-page petition read.
Kkumaar relied on data and statistics from various countries to bolster his argument. "In one study, of the 96 countries studied, 63 were found to have rape or sexual assault laws written in gender-neutral language, 27 had rape laws that were completely gender-specific (i.e., the perpetrator was defined as male and the victim as female) and 6 had partly gender-neutral laws (the perpetrator was defined as male and the victims could be male or female). In most progressive nations, rape laws are gender-neutral with respect to both perpetrator as well as the victim," he said in his petition.
Kkumar contended that critics have failed to acknowledge that gender-neutral reforms do not undermine one's gender or identity. Suggesting that sexual violence perpetrated by women does exist, he said: "As such, it is submitted that the recognition of male victimisation does not undermine the notion of patriarchy; it merely acknowledges that sexual coercion can also, in a minority of cases, exist in other contexts. To deny this reality creates the danger of theoretical objections to gender neutrality in rape, overriding the reality of rape and sexual assault outside the male-on-female paradigm."
"If a man alleges that a woman raped him, he is not seen as a 'real man', because the stereotypical patriarchal assumption of 'men are superior and stronger to women' comes into the picture. The same 'male domination' and the notion of patriarchy is, in fact, the very reason men do not come out of the closet to report rapes," the petitioner said .Article 14 of the Indian Constitution guarantees equal rights to men and women, and Article 15 prohibits discrimination, the petitioner contended.
He also relied on the recently delivered judgment on the Right to Privacy, where privacy was elevated to the status of a fundamental right. Kkumar further submitted that after the ruling, the countours of law surrounding privacy have changed.
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