Marital rape is a valid ground for claiming divorce, Kerala HC says in landmark judgment | News – Times of India Videos

In a significant observation on Friday, the Kerala High Court held that marital rape is a valid ground for claiming a divorce, even though marital rape is not penalized in India. Such conduct falls in the frame of “mental and physical cruelty,” the court noted. The bench, constituting Justices A. Muhamed Mustaque and Kauser Edappagath, was hearing the petition of a man who objected to a divorce judgment by a family court. The respondent-wife had faced harassment and cruelty, the family court noted. The wife allegedly was forced to have sex even when she was sick, bed-ridden, on the day her mother died, and even forced to engage in sexual intercourse in front of their daughter.