The Delhi High Court recently upheld the acquittal of a Muslim man accused of raping a 15-year-old girl after noting that the girl, also a Muslim, was his wife and he had sexual intercourse with her only after they got married to each other.

“We find that since the child victim was the wife who was almost fifteen years of age, the physical relationship of the respondent with the victim cannot be termed as rape,” the court said.

The High Court was hearing an appeal by the State of Delhi against a 2016 decision of the Additional Sessions Judge in Delhi, who had acquitted accused Kayum of “aggravated penetrative assault” on his then minor wife.

The case had been originally filed against the accused by the minor’s mother, who allegedly did not know of her marriage, after she found her daughter to be pregnant.

The victim told High Court that she married the accused, also her brother-in-law, in December 2014 when she had gone to attend a marriage in Bihar. The accused lived a few lanes away from her parents’ house.

The case was being heard under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.