The Law With No Word For It

Most of OIM’s Law Library documents a rule that exists but names one sex and not the other. This entry is different: it documents a rule that used to exist for a male victim, and now simply doesn’t.

What used to be there

Before July 2024, the Indian Penal Code had two relevant provisions sitting side by side. Section 375 defined rape — sex-specific, a man against a woman. Section 377 covered “unnatural offences” — non-consensual acts against “any man, woman or animal.” After the Supreme Court decriminalised consensual adult conduct in 2018, Section 377 didn’t disappear; it kept doing a second job nobody talked about much: it was the provision a male or transgender victim of non-consensual sexual violence could actually be charged under.

What happened to it

When the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita replaced the IPC on 1 July 2024, Section 377 was not carried forward in any form. This wasn’t an oversight nobody flagged — a Parliamentary Standing Committee reviewing the bill specifically recommended retaining coverage for non-consensual acts and bestiality. That recommendation did not make it into the final Act.

What’s left

According to legal commentary tracking this gap, a male victim of comparable non-consensual conduct today has to rely on general provisions — most commonly a “hurt” or “grievous hurt” charge. Those provisions can address the physical injury. Neither one names what happened as a sexual offence, and neither carries the same evidentiary framework or sentencing structure Parliament built specifically for sexual violence.

Where this stands right now

In August 2026, a Delhi High Court bench heard a public interest litigation asking the court to read the BNS’s sexual-offence provisions as gender-neutral. Reporting on the hearing describes the bench observing that it cannot create an offence the legislature chose to omit — that this is a job for Parliament, not for judicial interpretation. As of this entry’s checked date, that litigation had not produced a final, reported judgment. OIM is tracking it and will publish a full Case File once — and if — it does. Until then, treat “the courts are fixing this” as unconfirmed; the honest current status is that the gap is acknowledged and unresolved.

What this does not mean

It does not mean non-consensual sexual violence against a man is legal, or unpunishable. General criminal provisions still apply to the underlying physical conduct. What’s specifically missing is a provision that treats non-consensual sexual violence against a male victim as the category of offence it actually is — which affects everything from how police classify a complaint to what a charge sheet can allege to what sentencing framework applies.

Why this is the clearest entry in this library

Most of what OIM documents is a legislature actively choosing to write a rule around one sex, usually for a stated, checkable reason. This is different: it’s a protection that existed, was flagged for retention by Parliament’s own committee, and was dropped anyway, with no public record of a considered reason why. That distinction is worth sitting with before anyone — on any side of this debate — reaches for a conclusion.