Tukaram and ors. V. State of Maharashtra (Mathura Rape Case)

Shaurya Aggarwal and Rahul Rathee
Amity University, Noida, India.

Volume III, Issue V, 2020

Rape is a sexual assault which involves but not limited to sexual intercourse and other forms of sex-ual penetration without the consent of the person or against the will of the person. It can be carried out by physical force, abuse of authority, coercion or against someone who is incapable of giving a valid consent, in the meaning that the person is unconscious, has a disability or has not attained the legal age for consent.

In 2019, India recorded an average of 87 rape cases and a total of 4,05,861 crime cases against a women, which showed approximately over 7% rise in the cases from 2018. Laws  are being amended on regular basis to protect women in India but every law made seems to be ineffective when women get raped in India. Various schemes and policies were also im-plemented to provide safety and security at places where women feel unsafe. From minor to aged no women is safe, there are various instances where a toddler has been raped by someone and at the same time it is not shocking that a 70+ years old women is raped somewhere in India. Reasons may be numerous but the whole nation failed to protect safety of women in India.

In November 2019, a 27 year old girl was raped by various drug addict youngsters and was burnt to get away with the crime they committed.  In August 2020, a 13 year old minor was raped and killed by 2 men of her own village. The very recent Hathras Rape case was the latest case where a girl was raped and it resulted in her death. The case is under investigation but the issue remains the same “RAPE”. The Researchers in this paper are focusing on the very famous Mathura Rape case which forced the all 3 organs of India to act and come up with new legislations.

Key words: Rape, Sexual Harassment, custodial rape, rape laws.