SC issues notice to Centre on plea challenging consensual sexual conduct at 16-18 years
New Delhi, August 19: Supreme Court has issued a notice to the Centre on a petition challenging the vires of statutory rape laws that criminalise consensual intimate relationships between the ages of 16 and 18.
A bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, along with Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Mishra, issued a notice to the Centre, seeking a response on the case.
Harsh Vibhore Singhal is an advocate who has challenged the constitutionality of statutory rape laws that criminalize sexual consent for 16 to 18-year-olds with physiological, biological, psychological, and social capacities, the ability to assimilate and evaluate information to understand and comprehend risks, the freedom to make informed choices to convey affirmative or negative decisions, and the agency and decisional capacity.
"That it is the petitioner’s case that criminal sanctions are inappropriate against adolescents for consensual non-exploitative sexual activity. Sex involving persons aged below 18 years may be consensual in fact, if not in law. Hence, enforcement of criminal law must reflect the rights and capacity of such persons to make informed decisions about engaging in consensual sex and their right to be heard in such matters", the petition stated.
"The legislative intent of statutory rape law is to criminalise such consent of persons below the age of 18 years who despite having consent capacities - wilt and succumb to intimidation, deception, inducement, allurement, manipulation, blackmail, misconception of fact, dominance, control, fraud etc, not otherwise. It is easy to recognize that if someone at an ATM asks for your PIN number (i.e. consent for sex) while holding a knife to your back (Mens Rea) and you give the PIN, you are not consenting to be robbed (i.e. having sex)," it further added.
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- ANI
