Tanu Gaonkar (PES UNIVERSITY) has posted The Legal Recognition Of Consent In India: A Feminist Jurisprudential Study on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Consent is one of the fundamental ideas needed for autonomy, dignity, and equality that are essential in any modern legal framework. In India, consent is acknowledged in criminal, constitutional, and statutory contexts, i.e., legal theory. The actual implementation of consent is significantly influenced by patriarchy and by the inconsistent approach of Indian courts toward consent. This study, through a feminist jurispendence legal analysis, tries to identify the importance given to the concept of consent in India’s law in reality compared to that of legal theory, as the law fails to identify the lived realities of consent by women and is often treated as the norm. This paper takes into account the relevant statutory, constitutional, and case law about the concept of consent within India, using liberal, radical, and intersectional feminist theories to demonstrate how moralistic advice, unequal power relationships, and social conditioning often undermine women’s ability to exercise autonomy. In conclusion, this research paper argues that consent should be understood as a substantive, context-based principle that takes into account all aspects of equality, dignity, and feminist constitutionalism. It contends that Indian law still reflects patriarchal presumptions that weaken genuine consent.