New Delhi: The Centre on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that a man forcibly having sex with his minor wife, if she is above 15 years of age, should not come under IPC Section 375 (rape). This exception in the rape law, the Centre said, is to "protect the institution of marriage," Hindustan Times reported.

The government was responding to a plea filed before the court by the NGO Independent Thought, urging the court to include all minors, irrespective of marital status, under Section 375. Currently an exception to the rape law states that, "Sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under 15 years of age, is not rape."

Marriage law in India does not allow a woman to be legally married before the age of 18. Consensual sex with a minor outside of marriage is also considered rape by the law. Given all of this, Times of India quoted the NGO's lawyer Gaurav Agrawal as arguing, "We see a girl under 18 years of age as a child in POCSO Act, but once she is married, she is no more a child under the exception 2 to Section 375 of the IPC. This is totally inconsistent. The truth is that a girl under 15 is still a child, married or not. The parliament has to protect the child."

The Centre, however, through its lawyer Binu Tamta, resisted the NGO's plea. Tamta argued that child marriages were a reality in India and that "the institution of marriage must be protected. Otherwise, the children from such marriages will suffer."

"Isn't this an incentive for child marriage?" Justice Madan B. Lokur asked, on hearing Tamta's defence.

The government claimed there are 23 million child brides in the country and reading down the exception to Section 375 would make the men involved more susceptible to persecution, at which Justice Deepak Gupta said, according to Hindustan Times, "This reflects badly on the government."

According to the Telegraph, the apex court has given the Centre two weeks to provide data relating to the prosecution of those involved in child marriage, the number of prohibition officers appointed by states as per the Prohibition of Child Marriages Act, 2006 and medical records on the impact of such marriages on children.