The Decree That Cannot Command Consent: Restitution of Conjugal Rights and the Penalisation of Sexual Refusal in India

Abstract

Restitution of conjugal rights (RCR) under Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and its analogues allows a spouse to obtain a decree directing a withdrawn partner to resume cohabitation. Indian courts maintain that such a decree does not compel sexual intercourse. This paper tests that claim and asks how far RCR can legitimately attach adverse legal consequences to a spouse's refusal of consent to sexual relations. 
The paper traces the remedy from the English ecclesiastical courts to Section 9, maps the sanctions that follow non compliance with a decree, and reads T. Sareetha, Harvinder Kaur and Saroj Rani against the post-Puttaswamy jurisprudence on privacy, dignity and sexual autonomy. It also examines the parallel route by which persistent refusal of sex is treated as matrimonial cruelty, and compares jurisdictions that have abolished the remedy. 
Applying the four-limb proportionality test, the paper argues that no coercive or punitive consequence can legitimately attach to sexual refusal as such. The law may, at most, treat a sustained and unexplained withdrawal from shared life as evidence of breakdown when a spouse seeks dissolution. The paper proposes statutory clarification that a decree confers no claim to sexual relations, repeal of property attachment as a mode of execution, and the eventual replacement of RCR with a conciliation-centred procedure.