AHMEDABAD:
Gujarat
high court has held that a wife can file a complaint against her husband for
unnatural sex
and get him prosecuted under
Section 377 of the IPC
.
Discussing the history of criminality for unnatural sex in Britain and in India, the high court said that a charge of unnatural sex does not criminalize a particular class of people or identity or orientation.
"It merely identifies certain acts, which if committed, would constitute an offence."
According to the court, consent is not a determining criterion in the case of unnatural offences and rather any offence which is against the order of nature and can be described as carnal penetration and would constitute an offence under Section 377 of the IPC.
However, for matrimonial cruelty, the HC made it clear that except the sexual perversions of sodomy, buggery and bestiality, all other sexual perversions, would not fall within the sweep of Section 377 IPC.
With such observations, the court has quashed charges of unnatural sex against the doctor who was accused by his wife of forcing her to perform oral sex.