Former Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra on Monday said that marital rape should not be made a crime in India, The Times of India reported. He made the remark at a conference at KLE Society’s Law College in Bengaluru.

“I do not think that marital rape should be regarded as an offence in India, because it will create absolute anarchy in families and our country is sustaining itself because of the family platform which upholds family values,” Deccan Herald quoted Misra as saying.

The former chief justice said the notion that marital rape is a crime is borrowed from other countries and is not applicable to India.

According to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, forced sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, who is not under 18 years of age, does not count as rape.

In August 2017, the Centre had argued against criminalising marital rape and had told the Delhi High Court that doing so may destabilise the institution of marriage. The government had said that if criminalised, the accusation of marital rape would become an easy tool to harass husbands. It also claimed that there can be no “lasting evidence” in the case of sexual acts between a man and his wife.