India, Sept. 10 -- The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would list for final hearing, after three weeks, a batch of petitions pertaining to the contentious issue of marital rape. The apex court is seized of petitions raising 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.

Under the exception clause of Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, now repealed and replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his wife, the wife not being minor, is not rape.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 w...