A critical analysis of the standard of consent in rape law in India

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1398

Keywords:

Indian Penal Code, Indian Rape Law, Affirmative Standard of consent, complainant credibility, Código penal de la India, ley india sobre violación, estándar afirmativo de consentimiento, credibilidad del denunciante

Abstract

This article critically analyses the standard of consent in rape law in India by engaging in a doctrinal analysis of the current jurisprudence. It also analyses various extraneous circumstances influencing the determination of consent in Indian rape law. The article will then assess the status of consent jurisprudence and related issues in the English and Canadian jurisdictions for a comparative assessment. Thereafter, it will critically assess the arguments in favour of an affirmative standard of consent before concluding with possible solutions for better interpretation of the law in determining consent by courts during rape trials in India.

En este artículo se analiza críticamente el estándar de consentimiento en la ley india sobre violación mediante un análisis doctrinal de la jurisprudencia actual. También se analizan diversas circunstancias ajenas que influyen en la determinación del consentimiento en la legislación india sobre violación. A continuación, el artículo evaluará la situación de la jurisprudencia sobre el consentimiento y las cuestiones conexas en las jurisdicciones inglesa y canadiense para realizar una evaluación comparativa. A continuación, se evaluarán críticamente los argumentos a favor de una norma afirmativa del consentimiento antes de concluir con posibles soluciones para una mejor interpretación de la ley a la hora de determinar el consentimiento por parte de los tribunales durante los juicios por violación en la India.

Available from: https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1398

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

        Metrics

Views 1130
Downloads:
13(4)_Kulshreshtha_OSLS 325
XML_13(4)_Kulshreshtha_OSLS 1677


Author Biography

Nikunj Kulshreshtha, Jindal Global Law School, OP Jindal Global University

Nikunj Kulshreshtha is an Assistant Professor of Law at Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University. He completed his LL.M. in Criminal Justice from Queen Mary University of London. Prior to joining academia, he was a practising litigator in criminal law.

References

Barn, R., and Kumari, V., 2015. Complainant Credibility in Rape Appeals. British Journal of Criminology, vol. 55, 435.

Bergelson, V., 2014. The meaning of consent. Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, 12(1), 178.

Bhagwati, P., 2020. Awareness and attitude towards reproductive and sexual health rights and practices among college students: An empirical study. Indian Journal of Science and Technology, 13(25), 2502.

Brereton, Z., 2017. Perpetuating myths of women as false complainants in rape cases in India: culture v. the law. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice, 41(1-2), 41.

Brown, B., Burman, M., and Jamieson, L., 1993. Sex Crimes on Trial: The Use of Sexual Evidence in Scottish Courts. Edinburgh University Press.

Burgin, R., 2019. Persistent Narratives of Force and Resistance: Affirmative Consent as Law Reform. British Journal of Criminology, 59(2), 296.

Burgin, R., and Flynn, A., 2021. Women’s Behavior as Implied Consent: Male Reasonableness in Australian Rape Law. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 21(3), 334.

Byrnes, C., 1998. Putting the Focus Where it Belongs: Mens rea, Consent, Force, And the Crime of Rape. Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, vol. 10, 277, 287.

Craig, E., 2018. Putting Trials on Trial: Sexual Assault and the Failure of the Legal Profession. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Craig, E., 2021. Private records, Sexual Activity Evidence, and the charter of Rights and Freedoms. Alberta Law Review, 58(4), 773.

Crown Court Compendium (Judicial College, December 2020), Part I, Chapter 20-Sexual Offences.

Curtis, J., and Burnett, S., 2017. Affirmative consent: What do college student leaders think about “yes means yes” as the standard for sexual behavior? American Journal of Sexuality Education, vol, 12, 201.

Dash, P., 2020. Rape adjudication in India in the aftermath of Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013: findings from trial courts of Delhi. Indian Law Review, 4(2), 244.

Datta, A., 2021. French Court Rejects Migrant Afghan Rapist’s ‘Culture’ Defense. Vision Times 7 July.

Dempsey, M., and Herring, J., 2007. Why Sexual Penetration Requires Justification. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 27(3), 467.

DeShon, M., 2016. The Tension Between Traditional Consent and Affirmative Consent: A Kantian Solution. Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects, 238.

Dhonchak, A., 2019. Standard of Consent in Rape Law in India: Towards an Affirmative Standard. Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice, 34(29), 55-56.

Donovan, R., 2007. To blame or not to blame: influences of target race and observer sex on rape blame attribution. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 22(6), 722.

Dutt, S., and Manjula, M., 2017. Sexual knowledge, attitude, behaviors and sources of influences in Urban college youth: A study from India. Indian Journal of Social Psychiatry, 33(4), 319.

Ellison, L., and Munro, V., 2013. Better the Devil You Know? “Real Rape” Stereotypes and the Relevance of a Previous Relationship in (Mock) Juror Deliberations. The International Journal of Evidence & Proof, 17(4), 299.

Ferzan, K., 2016. Consent, culpability, and the law of rape. Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, 13(2).

Finch, E., and Munro, V., 2007. The Demon Drink and the Demonized Woman: Socio-Sexual Stereotypes and Responsibility Attribution in Rape Trials Involving Intoxicants. Social & Legal Studies, 16(4), 591.

Firth, G., 2005. The Rape Trial and Sexual History Evidence - R v. A and the (Un) Worthy Complainant. Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, 57(3), 442.

Garg, A., 2019. Consent, Conjugality and Crime: Hegemonic Constructions of Rape Laws in India. Social & Legal Studies, 28(6), 737.

Gavey, R., 2019. Affirmative Consent to Sex-Is it enough? New Zealand Women’s Law Journal, vol. 3, 35.

Gotell, L., 2008. Rethinking Affirmative Consent in Canadian Sexual Assault Law. Akron Law Review, 41(4), 3.

Gruber, A., 2016. Not Affirmative Consent. The University of Pacific Law Review, 47(4), 683.

Gurnham, D., 2016. Victim-blame as a symptom of rape myth acceptance? Another looks at how young people in England understand sexual consent. Legal Studies, 36(2), 258.

Halley, J., 2016. The Move to Affirmative Consent. Journal of Woman in Culture and Society, 42(1), 257.

Hansard, HL Vol. 649, col 669 (3 June 2003).

Herbenick, D., et al., 2019. The alcohol contexts of consent, wanted sex, sexual pleasure, and sexual assault: Results from a probability survey of undergraduate students. Journal of American College Health, 67(2), 144.

Herring, J., 2014. Rape and the definition of Consent. National Law School of India Review, 26(1), 62.

Hlavka, H., and Mulla, S., 2018. That’s How She Talks: Animating Text Message Evidence in the Sexual Assault Trial. Law & Society Review, 52(2), 401.

Jozkowski, K., 2017. Barriers to Affirmative Consent Policies and the Need for Affirmative Sexuality. University of the Pacific Law Review, 47(4), 741, 745.

Jozkowski, K., Manning, J., and Hunt, M., 2018. Sexual Consent in and out of the Bedroom: Disjunctive Views of Heterosexual College Students. Women’s Studies in Communication, 41(2), 117.

Justice Verma Committee, 2013. Justice Verma Committee Report on Amendments to Criminal Law [online]. 23 January. Available at: https://prsindia.org/policy/report-summaries/justice-verma-committee-report-summary

Koshan, J., 2010. The Legal Treatment of Marital Rape and Women’s Equality: An Analysis of the Canadian Experience [online]. Ottawa: The Equality Effect. Available at: http://theequalityeffect.org/pdfs/maritalrapecanadexperience.pdf

Kotiswaran, P., 2018. Governance Feminism in the Postcolony: Reforming India’s Rape Laws. In: J. Halley et al., eds., Governance Feminism: An Introduction. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Kulshreshtha, N., 2019. Ought the Rape/Sexual Assault Law in India be Gender-Neutral? Queen Mary Law Research Paper [online]. Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3704050

Kulshreshtha, N., 2020. An Assessment of Policing Behavior with regard to offences against women in India. In: D. Ukey et al., eds., Revisiting Reforms in Criminal Justice System in India. Bangalore: Thomson Reuters.

Kulshreshtha, N., 2023. The Contemporary Status of Rape Shield Laws in India. The International Journal of Evidence & Proof, 27(1), 3.

Kumar, A., 2021. Sexual Violence against Dalit Women: An Analytical Study of Intersectionality of Gender, Caste, and Class in India. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 22(10), 123.

Kumar, P., and Mittal, A., 2015. A Study of attitude towards sex education of college going students in relation to their home environment. International Journal of Current Research and Review, 7(14), 7.

Lahari, S., and Abhinaya, 2021. Knowledge, attitude, behaviours towards sex and sources of influences among youth in rural areas of northern Andhra Pradesh. MedPulse International Journal of Psychology, 17(1), 1.

Magill, S., 2017. Farooqui v State Government of Delhi: Confusing Consent. OxHRH Blog [online], 22 November. Available at: http://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/farooqui-v-state-government-of-delhi-confusing-consent/

McColgan, A., 1996. Common Law and the Relevance of Sexual History Evidence. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 16(2), 275.

McGlynn, C., 2017. Rape Trials and Sexual History Evidence: Reforming the Law on Third-Party Evidence. The Journal of Criminal Law, 81(5), 367.

Ministry of Home Affairs, 2017. National Crime Records Bureau, Crime in India: 2016 Statistics, 146–147. October.

Mukherjee, A., et al., 2019. Knowledge and attitudes toward sexual health and common sexual practices among college students – A survey from Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 41(4), 348.

Munro, V., 2011. From Consent to Coercion. In: C. McGlynn and V. Munro, eds., Rethinking Rape Law: International and Comparative Perspectives. London: Routledge-Cavendish.

Palmater, P., 2016. Shining Light on the Dark Places: Addressing Police Racism and Sexualized Violence against Indigenous Women and Girls in the National Inquiry. Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, 28(2), 253.

Ruparelia, R., 2006. Does No Mean No Mean Reasonable Doubt? Assessing the Impact of Ewanchuk on Determinations of Consent. Canadian Woman Studies, 25(1), 167.

Sagar, A., 2019. Judicial Narrative and Rape Myths: The Farooqui Case. Social-Legal Review, vol. 15, 43.

Smart, C., 1989. Feminism and The Power of Law. London: Routledge.

Stanko, E., 1997. Safety Talk: Conceptualizing Women’s Safekeeping as a Technology of Risk. Theoretical Criminology, 1(4), 479.

Temkin, J., and Ashworth, A., 2004. Rape, Sexual Assault and the problems of consent. Criminal Law Review, 328–334.

Vishwanath, N., 2018. The Shifting Shape of the Rape Discourse. Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 25(1).

Wadekar, D., 2021. Rejecting Ideal Victimhood. Economic & Political Weekly, 56(23).

Walklate, S., 1997. Risk and Criminal Survivorization: A Modernist Dilemma? British Journal of Criminology, 37(1), 35.

Wall, J., 2019. Justifying and Excusing Sex. Criminal Law and Philosophy, 13(2), 283.

Wertheimer, A., 2000. What Is Consent? And Is It Important? Buffalo Criminal Law Review, 3(2), pp. 557, 559.

Willis, M., and Smith, R., 2021. Sexual Consent Across Diverse Behaviours and Contexts-Gender Differences and Non-consensual Sexual Experiences. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 37(19-20).

Wright, J., 2001. Consent and Sexual Violence in Canadian Public Discourse: Reflections on Ewanchuk. Canadian Journal of Law and Society, 16(173), 184–91.

Young, G., 2001. The Sexual History Provisions in the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act, 1999-A Violation of the Right to Fair Trial. Medicine, Science and the Law, 41(3), 217.

Zuckerman, A., 1989. The Principles of Criminal Evidence. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Published

28-07-2023

How to Cite

Kulshreshtha, N. (2023) “A critical analysis of the standard of consent in rape law in India”, Oñati Socio-Legal Series, 13(4), pp. 1428–1456. doi: 10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1398.