Men's rights in India: A Pitiable Condition

Abstract

This article looks at two specific areas of Indian criminal law, the definition of sexual offenses and the provision on matrimonial cruelty. It argues that both areas maintain a gender-exclusive structure that the state's institutions have consistently flagged as inadequate but have never fixed. Section 63 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita limits rape to acts committed by men against women. The Law Commission of India (2000), the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, and the Justice J.S. Verma Committee all suggested revising this for greater gender neutrality, but reform has failed through five institutional attempts over more than two decades. Section 498A of the old Indian Penal Code, now Sections 85-86 of the BNS, and the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, do not provide an equivalent remedy for men facing matrimonial cruelty. This imbalance has required the Supreme Court to correct it repeatedly through safeguards in cases like Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar and Rajesh Chaddha v. State of U.P. Evaluating both provisions against the classification standard in Article 14 and the protective exception in Article 15(3), the article finds the sexual offense law under-inclusive to the point of undermining its own purpose. Meanwhile, the cruelty provision remains constitutionally sound but structurally one-sided. Drawing on NCRB suicide data and a survey of gender-neutral rape law reforms in the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada, the article concludes with four specific recommendations for reform. None of these suggestions would weaken the protections available to women under Article 15(3).