No.

The testimony of the victim in rape cases is vital and unless there are compelling reasons which necessitate looking for corroboration of her statement, the courts should find no difficulty to act on the testimony of a victim of sexual assault alone to convict an accused where her testimony inspires confidence and is found to be reliable.

In the Indian setting refusal to act on the testimony of the victim of sexual assault in the absence of corroboration as a rule is adding insult to injury.

To insist on corroboration except in the rarest of rare cases is to equate one who is a victim of the lust of another with an accomplice to a crime and thereby insult womanhood.

It would be adding insult to injury to tell a woman that her claim of rape will not be believed unless it is corroborated in material particulars as in the case of an accomplice to a crime.

Courts cannot cling to a fossil formula and insist upon corroboration even if, taken as a whole, the case spoken of by the victim of sex crime strikes the judicial mind as probable.

If the totality of the circumstances appearing on the record of the case discloses that the prosecutrix does not have a strong motive to falsely involve the person charged, the court should ordinarily have no hesitation in accepting her evidence.

A girl or a woman in the tradition bound non-permissive society of India would be extremely reluctant even to admit that any incident which is likely to reflect on her chastity had ever occurred.

She would be conscious of the danger of being ostracized by the society and when in the face of these factors the crime is brought to light, there is an inbuilt assurance that the charge is genuine rather than fabricated.

Just as a witness who has sustained an injury, which is not shown or believed to be self-inflicted, is the best witness in the sense that he is least likely to exculpate the real offender, the evidence of a victim of sex offence is entitled to great weight, absence of corroboration notwithstanding.

The court while appreciating the evidence of a prosecutrix may look for some assurance of her statement to satisfy its judicial conscience, since she is a witness who is interested in the outcome of the charge levelled by her, but there is no requirement of law to insist upon corroboration of her statement to base conviction of an accused.

If for some reason the court finds it difficult to place implicit reliance on her testimony, it may look for evidence which may lend assurance to her testimony, short of corroboration required in the case of an accomplice.

No, a woman or a girl who is raped is not an accomplice. Corroboration is not the sine qua non for conviction in a rape case.

It must not be overlooked that a woman or a girl subjected to sexual assault is not an accomplice to the crime but is a victim of another person’s lust and it is improper and undesirable to test her evidence with a certain amount of suspicion, treating her as if she were an accomplice.

Even if the prosecutrix, in a given case, has been promiscuous in her sexual behaviour earlier, she has a right to refuse to submit herself to sexual intercourse to anyone and everyone because she is not a vulnerable object or prey for being sexually assaulted by anyone and everyone.

A rapist not only violates the victim’s privacy and personal integrity, but inevitably causes serious psychological as well as physical harm in the process.

Rape is not merely a physical assault, it is often destructive of the whole personality of the victim.

A murderer destroys the physical body of his victim; a rapist degrades the very soul of the helpless female

The rule that a husband cannot be criminally liable for raping his wife if he has sexual intercourse with her without her consent no longer forms part of the law of England since a husband and wife are now to be regarded as equal partners in marriage.

The Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act, 1976, defines rape as having “unlawful” sexual intercourse with a woman without her consent.

The word “unlawful” is to be treated as mere surplusage and not as meaning “outside marriage”, since it is clearly unlawful to have sexual intercourse with any woman without her consent.

Yes, as per Supreme Court in Bhupinder Singh v. U T of Chandigarh:

• Though it is urged with some amount of vehemence that when the complainant knew that he was a married man, clause “fourthly” of Section 375 IPC has no application, the stand is clearly without substance.
• Even though, the complainant claimed to have married the accused, which fact is established from several documents, that does not improve the situation so far as the accused-appellant is concerned.
• Since, he was already married, the subsequent marriage, if any, has no sanctity in law and is void ab-initio. In any event, the accused-appellant could not have lawfully married the complainant.

• For the proposition that the requisite consent was lacking, it would have to be shown that the girl had been put in fear of death or hurt and that was the reason for her consent. [Source: Tukaram v. State of Maharashtra]