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The WCD minister says criminalising marital rape would serve no purpose; claims finance ministry was compelled to cut GST on sanitary pads from 18 to 12 per cent.

New Delhi: Criticising women’s rights groups for turning marital rape into a “catchphrase”, women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi said that criminalising it would serve no purpose in practical terms.

She acknowledges that marital rape does occur, but said women’s groups may have “run out of ideas” and made it into a rallying cause.

“The point is that rape is already illegal. You don’t have to now further diminish it and say that this is rape and this is marital rape,” the minister told ThePrint in an exclusive interview.

It has been observed that most women complain of marital rape only if the marriage ends, in which case it constitutes rape.

Asked if she feels that the exception to the rape law, which says sexual intercourse by a man with his wife aged 15 years or above is not rape even if it is without her consent, needs to be revisited, Gandhi said, “We can look at doing away with the exception and I can talk to the home ministry on that, but I’m just pointing out that in practical terms, it is an exception, whether it is there or not there doesn’t work out in real terms.”

GST on sanitary napkins: Finance ministry ‘budged’

Gandhi said that it was due to the WCD ministry’s “sustained campaign” that the finance ministry “budged” and reduced the GST from 18 to 12 per cent. Yet, despite the ministry’s open submissions to the exempt sanitary towels from GST entirely, she does see logic in their argument.

The finance ministry has repeatedly argued that exempting all sanitary napkins from GST would unduly benefit MNCs and destroy the upcoming local market.

Asked, however, if she thinks it is tenable to have sanitary napkins subjected to GST and exempt sindoor tax-free, the minister said, “We weren’t asked as to what we’d like to have as GST free or not so the only stand we took was literally on two things.”

One was on children’s food and the other issue on which the WCD took a stand was sanitary towels, wherein the GST came down to 12 from 18 per cent, she said.

“So we’re winning every battle we fight. It’s just that you understand the logic of the finance ministry and say that I’d much rather have low-cost, locally made sanitary towels, and this 12 per cent actually allows us to create a new industry,” Gandhi said.

‘Dowry law should be applied on case-by-case basis’

The minister said that while she understands that Section 498A is the only “weapon of protection” that women have in abusive marriages, there needs to be “case by case” examination.

“We need police to be more sensitive in analysing whether it’s a case that requires 498A,” Gandhi said.

‘Do adequate groundwork to empower women’

Breaking her silence on the women’s reservation bill, Gandhi said that “passing the bill without doing adequate groundwork to empower women would only ensure a parliament with 33 per cent proxy women”.

“What’s the point of having 33 per cent relatives in Parliament,” she asked. Instead, she is in favour of giving 33 per cent tickets to women candidates by parties to increase their participation in electoral politics. “If we get that, the spectacle would be less ugly,” Gandhi said.

‘Special law needed to deal with NRI marriage problems’

Defending the government’s recent decision to consider making a law that will allow authorities to attach the property of “absconding” NRI husbands and their relatives, Gandhi said, “You cannot marry a woman here, give her a wrong address, take dowry, run off abroad, never come back and already have three marriages there. There has to be some deterrent.”

Asked if such a law could be misused and unduly target families of absconding husbands, she said, “I can tell you nobody who comes from abroad and marries a girl with the intention of duping her does it without the cooperation of his family.”

“They usually find the girl or the ‘murga’ for him, therefore should they not be punished?”

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