The Chhattisgarh High Court recently passed a verdict on sexual intercourse with a dead body, stating that such an action does not legally constitute rape under Indian law.
The judgment was delivered by the division bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Bibhu Dutta Guru while addressing a case that involved abduction, rape and murder of a minor.
The case involves two accused identified as Nitin Yadav and Neelkanth Nagesh who were booked for kidnapping, raping, and murdering the minor and sentenced to life imprisonment. While Yadav was sentenced to life imprisonment for kidnapping, rape and murder of the minor, Nagesh’s case involved performing a sexual act on the dead body as well as destroying evidence.
Court ruling
The prosecution argued that under Indian law Nagesh’s act should be classified to be rape, thus citing the Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to dignity even in death, Live Law reported.
However, the Chhattisgarh High Court rejected this argument stating even though sexual intercourse with a corpse is “one of the most horrendous acts”, the offence does not come under Section 376 of the now-shelved Indian Penal Code (IPC) or the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
“Such provisions apply only when the victim is alive. There is no doubt that the offence committed by the accused- Neelkanth alias Neelu Nagesh raping a dead body is one of the most horrendous crimes one can think of,” the bench said.
“But the fact of the matter is that as of date, the said accused cannot be convicted for the offence punishable under Sections 363, 376 (3) of the IPC, Section 6 of the POCSO Act, 2012 and Section 3(2)(v) of the Act of 1989 as the offence of rape was committed with a dead body. For convicting an offence under the sections above, the victim should be alive,” it added and upheld the different charges of conviction for Nagesh and Yadav and dismissed the plea that Yadav should be prosecuted under rape charges.
Follow on Twitter | Posted by Sayima Ahmad | 
