Gender Neutrality in Sexual Offences: Need for Reform in Indian Rape Laws

In India, the definition of rape is Gender Neutrality that is found. primarily at Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) where only men are defined as the rapists and only women are defined as the victims. This paper examines the limitations of this strategy in order to address the realities of sexual violence against men, transgender people and nonbinary people. Progressive judicial observations and recommendations on gender neutral laws by the Justice Verma Committee have been stalled for these same reasons. The paper analyses socio–legal impediments to gender neutrality (patriarchal norms and mitigations of the BNS-2023, which replaced the IPC), viewed from the standpoint of gender issues and the gender opposition to uniform terms of participation (Burger, 2019; Zarnowitz, 2016). This thesis advances the argument that gender neutral laws are indispensable for the preservation of constitutional principles of equality and justice, comparing to other jurisdictions like United States of America and United Kingdom, all through integrating case laws, statistical data and human rights perspectives while also proposing the importance of revising laws in order to remain inclusive in protecting against sexual violence while taking into consideration people’s rights not to be subjected to accusations of sexual violence by victims.