India is one of few countries where rape law properly applies the term consent. But K. V. Dhanajay, a Supreme Court Advocate there, has gone to a great deal of trouble to display his abject ignorance. He has condemned the Judges of India as “ignorant” because they understand the meaning that he either ignores or fails to comprehend.
He could have saved himself a great deal of trouble if he’d simply looked up the legal definition of consent before he wrote today’s ill-conceived diatribe. He would have seen why proceeding past his first paragraph was a foolish waste of ink.
He is faulting judges for convicting on charges of rape by fraud when the accused induces sex on the premise of a marriage agreement without the actual intent to marry the victim. He is even putting together an organisation to free convicted offenders called The Innocence Project.
Dhanajay has gone to great lengths to dredge up the incorrect application of rape terminology in the laws from around the world. People use the term consent to mean agreement, and justify rape as a result. Consent does not exist without knowledge. Agreement does not necessarily mean that the victim is knowledgeable, and the offender knows for a fact that they are not. Agreement without consent is assent. When someone is lied to, they are assenting, not consenting to sex.
Here is the law Mr. Dhanajay has presented in his article:
Section 375. Rape.—A man is said to commit “rape,” who, except in the case hereinafter excepted, has sexual intercourse with a woman under circumstances falling under any of the six following descriptions:—
First — Against her will.
Secondly —Without her consent.
Thirdly — With her consent, when her consent has been obtained by putting her or any person in whom she is interested in fear of death or of hurt.
Fourthly —With her consent, when the man knows that he is not her husband, and that her consent is given because she believes that he is another man, to whom she is or believes herself to be lawfully married.
Fifthly — With her consent, when, at the time of giving such consent, by reason of unsoundness of mind or intoxication or the administration by him personally or through another of any stupefying or unwholesome substance, she is unable to understand the nature and consequences of that to which she gives consent.
Sixthly — With or without her consent, when she is under sixteen years of age.
Explanation.—Penetration is sufficient to constitute the sexual intercourse necessary to the offence of rape.
Exception —Sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape.
His interpretation of consent is sheer folly!
As you can see, on the very third line of the law Dhanajay quotes, someone who defrauds a victim of sex by promising marriage with no intent to follow through is clearly committing rape by fraud. They are not obtaining consent. They’re obtaining assent which does not carry the weight of consent. Instead, Mr. Dhanajay invents an absurd theory that judges are employing an artificial concept that “consensual intercourse becomes rape afterwards.”
It’s apparent that Mr. Dhanajay, an otherwise educated man, is weak on the moral and legal obligations that people should not undermine someone’s self-determination over their reproductive organs by tricking them. In his opinion, the offenders are innocent and wrongly convicted. Please use this link to let him know what you think!