The bench of Justice Ajay Rastogi and Justice BV Nagarathna of the Supreme Court of India has issued notice on a petition raising the issue of Marital Rape wherein the split verdict of the Delhi High Court has been challenged.

The Supreme Court has put the matter for hearing in the month of Feb 2018 and clubbed all the matters regarding the issue of Marital Rape pending before the Supreme Court. Sr. Advocate Gopal Shankarnarayan appeared before the Court and submitted that some matters of similar issues are pending before the Supreme Court since 2018 but they are not getting listed for hearing.

The present matter has arisen from a judgment of Delhi High Court which gave a split verdict on the issue on a batch of petitions challenging the exception to Section 375 IPC which exempted from the offence of rape when forceful sexual intercourse by a man with his wife is committed. The spilt verdict was given by the bench of Justice Rajiv Shakdher and C. Hari Shankar on May 11, 2022, Justice Shakdher had ruled that the exemption of the husband from the offence of marital rape is unconstitutional and it is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India whereas justice C. Hari Shanker did not agree with these findings and held that Exemption 2 to Section 375 is not violative of Article 14.

The Supreme Court issued notice on the argument of Advocate Karuna Nandy appearing for All India Democratic Women's Association that a substantial question of law is involved and both the judges have ruled that the issue should be dealt with by this Court.