Direction: Read the following passage and answer the questions given below.

“Among several tribes in the Western India- Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra, the live-in relationships between couples is a customary practice. Their culture of cohabitation is based on couple’s right to choose and right to reject. Bhils in Gujarat, Garasia, Gamar Community in Rajasthan who are subsisting on farming and manual labour have been extremely poor and deprived for centuries. They have traditionally been cohabiting under live-in arrangements, have children also and when they accumulate adequate marriage expenses, they get married. At times the head of the household organises group-marriages of 2 generations of live-in couples to economise the cost,” said Dr.Vibhuti Patel, women’s study scholar.

The Mathura rape case was an instance of custodial rape that occurred in the March of 1972 when a tribal girl was allegedly raped by two policemen on the compound of Desaiganj Police Station in the Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra. The case first came to the sessions court in 1974 where it held that because Mathura was “habituated to sexual intercourse”, her consent was voluntary and thus there was sexual intercourse but not rape. The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court on appeal held that there was rape and sentenced the two policemen to one and five years of imprisonment. The Court observed submission to rape under threat or fear is not a valid form of consent.

But the Supreme Court, in Tuka Ram And Anr v State Of Maharashtra (1978), overturned that judgement and acquitted the accused. Due to widespread protests, the Government of India eventually brought about the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1983 which made a statutory provision in the face of Section 114 (A) of the Indian Evidence Act of 1872. It states that if the victim says that she did not consent to the sexual intercourse, the Court shall presume that she did not consent as a rebuttable presumption.