Recent Amendments & Developments in Women’s Rights and Protection Law in India (2024–2026)

Shifting the scales

Recent Amendments & Developments in Women’s Rights and Protection Law in India (2024–2026)

A note prepared by Khyatee, B.A. LL.B., ILS Law College, Pune — Legal Drafting Internship

India’s framework for protecting women sits at an unusually active crossroads. The 2023 recodification of criminal law, an unresolved constitutional battle over marital rape, a tightened Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) enforcement regime, and a controversial rewrite of transgender protections together mark the most significant two years for gender law since the 2013 Criminal Law Amendment that followed the Nirbhaya case.

Each development pulls in a different direction — some expanding protection through faster procedure and boardroom accountability, others (as with the 2026 Transgender Amendment) narrowing rights that were previously secured.

This note maps the key legislative and judicial developments of 2024–2026, tracing both the letter of the new law and the gap that persists between statutory promise and lived reality for women across India.

Timeline at a Glance

• July 2024: BNS, BNSS and BSA come into force.
• October 2024: Supreme Court begins hearing marital-rape exception challenge.
• July 2025: MCA mandates Board-level POSH disclosure.
• March 2026: Proposed amendments relating to the Transgender Persons Act (subject to legislative status).

I. The Great Recodification — IPC to BNS

The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 (BNS), Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 (BNSS) and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 (BSA) replaced the colonial-era IPC, CrPC and Evidence Act with effect from 1 July 2024.

After more than 160 years, the IPC contained several provisions reflecting outdated notions of morality and gender, even though offences against women were primarily classified under offences affecting human body.

For women, the practical gains lie chiefly in procedure: BNSS mandates Zero FIR registration at any police station irrespective of territorial jurisdiction, tighter statutory timelines for recording a survivor’s statement and completing medical examination, compulsory forensic and videographic documentation in serious sexual-offence investigations, and a decisive shift toward digital/electronic evidence (under the BSA) in place of paper-heavy investigation that historically slowed prosecutions.

Access is also being widened administratively — 2026 initiatives push regional-language helplines and USSD-based reporting so that women in remote areas can reach the same complaint mechanisms as those in metropolitan cities.

Substantively, however, continuity outweighs change in one crucial respect: BNS Section 63 reproduces the old Exception 2 to Section 375 IPC almost verbatim, so that non-consensual intercourse by a man with his adult wife continues to sit outside the statutory definition of rape.

II. Marital Rape — The Unfinished Debate

A three-judge Supreme Court bench began hearing consolidated petitions challenging the marital-rape exception in October 2024, building on a 2022 Delhi High Court split verdict in which Justice Shakdher found the exception unconstitutional as a violation of bodily autonomy, while Justice Shankar upheld it as consistent with the “legitimate expectations” of marriage.

As of mid-2026, no final verdict has been delivered; hearings were deferred following Chief Justice Chandrachud’s retirement, and the matter now stands before a reconstituted bench with no fixed date.

High Courts meanwhile remain sharply divided in the interim: the Karnataka High Court in Hrishikesh Sahoo v State of Karnataka held plainly that “rape is rape”, whereas in February 2025 the Chhattisgarh High Court acquitted a husband of rape, unnatural sex and culpable homicide — despite a dying declaration from his wife describing the assault that caused her death — solely because the exception left the court no other legal conclusion available.

The Union Government continues to resist judicial criminalisation, arguing before the Court that Parliament has reviewed rape law multiple times without removing the exception, that the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 and the cruelty offence (BNS s.85, formerly IPC s.498A) already provide adequate civil and criminal remedies, and that criminalisation could destabilise the institution of marriage.

The Chhattisgarh facts arguably undercut this argument, since the surviving charge of cruelty carried a markedly lighter sentence than a rape conviction would have.

Status check: Exception 2, BNS s.63 — constitutionality sub judice before the Supreme Court; no fixed hearing date.

A private member’s bill to criminalise marital rape was introduced in the Lok Sabha in December 2025 but has not been taken up.

III. POSH — From Paper Policy to Board-Level Accountability

Enforcement of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 — itself born of the Supreme Court’s 1997 Vishaka guidelines — hardened considerably through 2025–26, moving the statute from a paper-based compliance checklist toward genuine institutional accountability.

The Companies (Accounts) Second Amendment Rules, 2025, effective 14 July 2025, now require every company’s Board’s Report to disclose the number of sexual-harassment complaints received, resolved, and pending beyond ninety days.

This converts POSH compliance into a shareholder- and regulator-facing obligation rather than a private HR matter.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development’s SHe-Box portal was relaunched as a central online complaint and monitoring platform routing grievances to the correct Internal Committee (IC) or Local Complaints Committee (LCC).

The Supreme Court, continuing its supervisory jurisdiction from Aureliano Fernandes v State of Goa, directed in August 2025 that every State and Union Territory conduct a district-wise survey verifying whether workplaces have even constituted a functioning IC.

The Court found this necessary after describing implementation of the decade-old Act as “lamentable”, particularly in the private and informal sectors.

Non-compliance now attracts fines of up to ₹50,000, doubling on repetition, with possible cancellation of business licences for persistent default.

Three 2025 Rulings

Case	Date	Holding
HCL Technologies v N. Parthasarathy	Jan 2025	Impact on the complainant outweighs the respondent’s intent; unwelcome touching/handshakes can amount to harassment.
Vaneeta Patnaik v Nirmal K. Chakrabarti	2025	The three-month limitation period is strictly enforced, even where allegations are serious.
Dr Sohail Malik v Union of India	2025	A woman may complain to her own workplace ICC even where the accused is employed elsewhere.

IV. Transgender Persons (Amendment) Act, 2026 — A Contested Intersection

Introduced in the Lok Sabha on 13 March 2026, passed by both Houses within under a fortnight, and assented to shortly after, this amendment replaces the inclusive, self-identification-based definition of “transgender person” found in the 2019 Act with a narrower, category-based list.

The list retains recognised socio-cultural identities such as kinner, hijra, aravani and jogta, and persons with intersex variations, while dropping broader categories of self-perceived gender identity that the 2019 Act had expressly protected.

Recognition now additionally requires verification by a medical board before a District Magistrate can issue an identity certificate, replacing what had been a straightforward administrative declaration.

The amendment also introduces a new criminal framework, penalising anyone found to be “compelling”, “forcing” or “alluring” a person or child to outwardly present as transgender, with penalties extending up to life imprisonment.

The Bill was passed despite the resignation of two members of the National Council for Transgender Persons in protest, an appeal from over 140 lawyers, law students and activists urging the President to withhold assent, and criticism from bodies including Amnesty International.

Amnesty International described the law as reintroducing state-controlled, medically gate-kept identity verification in place of the self-determination standard the Supreme Court had guaranteed in NALSA v Union of India (2014).

The Road Ahead

• A pending Supreme Court verdict on the marital-rape exception remains the single biggest fault-line in Indian gender law.
• POSH enforcement is shifting from a compliance checklist to boardroom-level, publicly disclosed accountability.
• The 2026 Transgender Amendment shows that not every 2024–26 development has expanded protection — some have narrowed it.
• Watch for: legislative movement on marital rape, further SHe-Box data audits, and possible court challenges to the 2026 Transgender Amendment.

References

• Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, s.63.
• PRS Legislative Research, Monthly Policy Review (Mar 2026).
• Feminism in India (Apr 2026).
• The Federal (Mar 2026).
• Amnesty International (Mar 2026).
• IDR Online (May 2026).
• Companies (Accounts) Second Amendment Rules 2025.
• Aureliano Fernandes v State of Goa, Civil Appeal No. 2482/2014.
• Vaneeta Patnaik v Nirmal Kanti Chakrabarti (2025).
• HCL Technologies Ltd v N. Parthasarathy (Jan 2025).