GP by-poll: Irvathur goes to Cong, Amtadi to BJP
Bantwal, June 17: Both Congress and BJP-backed candidates have won one gram panchayat seat each in a by-election held two gram panchayat seats in the taluk.
The election was held for one seat each in Irvattur and Amtadi gram panchayats on Thursday and counting of votes was held today.
Congress-backed candidate Sudhindra Shetty won the Irvathur seat and BJP-backed candidate Surendra Poojary won the Amtadi seat. The counting of votes of both the seats was held at the Mini Vidhana Soudha on BC Road under the guidance of tahsildar Y Ravi and election staff.
Amtadi seat was vacant due to the death of its member Chandravati B Bhandari and election was held at SVS Temple school at Bantwal. Chandravati was backed by CPI, but committed suicide a few days ago. Two candidates contested in the seat. Surendra Poojary won the seats with 332 votes, while his opponent Babu Bhandari, husband of Chandravati, backed by CPI got 315 votes.
In Irvattur gram panchayat, the election was held for Mudupadukodi-1 seat. Congress-backed candidate Sudheendra Shetty got 391 votes against his opponent BJP backed candidate Janardhan Shetty who got 302 seats. As the previous gram panchayat member Sundar Shetty was absent from the gram panchayat meetings continuously, he was disqualified.
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SC to hear pleas against laws granting immunity to husbands in marital rape cases
New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court has said it listed for Tuesday pleas on the vexed legal question of whether a husband should enjoy immunity from prosecution for the offence of rape if he forces his wife, who is not a minor, to have sex.
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice JB Pardiwala said the pleas were already "listed tomorrow" and they would be taken up after some part-heard cases.
The pleas for early listing were mentioned by senior advocate Karuna Nundy, appearing for a litigant in the case.
On September 18, senior advocate Indira Jaising, appearing for one of the litigants, mentioned that the pleas needed to be heard urgently.
The top court on July 16 agreed to list for hearing the pleas on the legal question. The Chief Justice had indicated that the cases might be taken up on July 18.
Under the exception clause of Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), now repealed and replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his wife, the wife not being minor, is not rape.
Even under the new law, Exception 2 to Section 63 (rape) says that "sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under eighteen years of age, is not rape".
The top court on January 16, 2023, sought the Centre's response on a clutch of petitions assailing the IPC provision, which provides protection to a husband against prosecution for forcible sexual intercourse if the wife is an adult.
On May 17, it also issued a notice to the Centre on a similar plea challenging the BNS provision on the issue.
The BNS, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam came into effect from July 1, replacing the IPC, Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Evidence Act, respectively.
"We have to resolve the matters concerning marital rape," the bench had said.
The Centre earlier said the issue had legal as well as social implications, and the government would like to file its response to the petitions.
One of the pleas is related to a Delhi High Court split verdict of May 11, 2022, on the issue.
The appeal has been filed by a woman, who was one of the petitioners before the high court.
While delivering a split judgment, Justice Rajiv Shakdher and Justice C Hari Shankar concurred on granting the petitioners a certificate of leave to appeal in the Supreme Court as the matter involved substantial questions of law, which required a decision by the top court.
While Justice Shankar, who headed the division bench, favoured striking down the marital rape exception for being "unconstitutional" and said it would be "tragic if a married woman's call for justice is not heard even after 162 years" since the enactment of the IPC, he said the exception under the rape law was not "unconstitutional and was based on an intelligible differentia".
The concept of intelligible differentia distinguishes people or things grouped together from those that are left out.
Another plea has been filed by a man against a Karnataka High Court verdict that paved the way for his prosecution for allegedly raping his wife.
Karnataka High Court had on March 23 last year said exempting a husband from allegations of rape and unnatural sex with his wife ran against Article 14 (equality before law) of the Constitution.
The set of pleas are PILs filed against the IPC provision and have challenged the constitutionality of the marital rape exception under Section 375 (rape) of the IPC on grounds that it discriminates against married women who are sexually assaulted by their husbands.
