JUDGMENT

G. P. MATHUR, J. — This writ petition under Art. 32 of the Constitution has been filed by way of public interest litigation, by Sakshi, which is an organisation to provide legal, medical, residential, psychological or any other help, assistance or char¬itable support for women, in particular those who are victims of any kind of sexual abuse and/or harassment, violence or any kind of atrocity or violation and is a violence intervention centre. The respondents arrayed in the writ petition are (1) Union of India; (2) Ministry of Law and Justice; and (3) Commissioner of Police, New Delhi. The main reliefs claimed in the writ petition are us under :

(A) Issue a writ in the nature of a declaration or any other appropriate writ or direction declaring inter alia that “sexual intercourse” as contained in Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code shall include all forms of penetration such as penile/vaginal penetration, penile/oral penetration, penile/anal penetration, finger/vaginal and finger/anal penetration and object/vaginal penetration;

(B) Consequently, issue a writ, order of direction in the nature of a direction to the respondents and its servants and agents to register all such cases found to be truly on investigation, offences falling within the broadened interpreta¬tion of “sexual intercourse” set out in prayer (A) aforesaid as offences under Sections 375, 376 and 376A to 376D of the Indian Penal Code,1860;

(C) Issue such other writ, order or direction as this Hon’¬ble Court may deem appropriate in the present facts and circum¬stances.

The petition is thus restricted to a declaratory relief and consequential directions.

2. It is set out in the writ petition that the petitioner has noticed with growing concern the dramatic increase of vio¬lence, in particular sexual violence against women and children as well as the implementation of the provisions of Indian Penal Code namely Sections 377, 375/376 and 354 by the respondent au¬thorities. The existing trend of the respondent authorities has been to treat sexual violence, other than penile/vaginal penetra¬tion, as lesser offences falling under either Section 377 or 354 of the IPC and not as a sexual offence under Section 375/376 IPC. It has been found that offences such as sexual abuse of minor children and women by penetration other than penile/vaginal penetration which would take any other form and could also be through use of objects whose impact on the victims is in no manner legs than the trauma of penile/vaginal penetration as traditionally understood under Section 375/376, have been treated as offences falling under Section 354 of the IPC as outraging the modesty of a women or under Section 377, IPC as unnatural offences.

3. The petitioner through the present petition contends that the narrow understanding and application of rape under Section 375/376, IPC only to the cases of penile/vaginal penetra¬tion runs contrary to the existing contemporary understanding of rape as an intent to humilitate, violate and degrade a woman or child sexually and, therefore, adversely affects the sexual integrity and autonomy of women and children in violation of Art. 21 of the Constitution.

4. The petitioner submits that a plain reading of Section 375 would make it apparent that the term “sexual intercourse” has not been defined and is, therefore, subject to and is capable of judicial interpretation. Further the explanation to Section 375 IPC does not in any way limit the term penetration to mean pe¬nile/vaginal penetration. The definition of the term rape as con¬tained in the Code is extremely wide and takes within its sweep various forms of sexual offences. Limiting the understanding of “rape” to abuse by penile/vaginal penetration only, runs contrary to the contemporary understanding of sexual abuse of law and denies majority of women and children access to adequate redress in violation of Arts. 14 and 21 of the Constitution. Statistics and figures indicate that sexual abuse of chil