diff --git a/Doc/library/urllib.robotparser.rst b/Doc/library/urllib.robotparser.rst
index f063e463753e0b..d89ac27083709c 100644
--- a/Doc/library/urllib.robotparser.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/urllib.robotparser.rst
@@ -23,11 +23,14 @@ web site that published the :file:`robots.txt` file.  For more details on the
 structure of :file:`robots.txt` files, see http://www.robotstxt.org/orig.html.
 
 
-.. class:: RobotFileParser(url='')
+.. class:: RobotFileParser(url='', sslcontext=None)
 
    This class provides methods to read, parse and answer questions about the
    :file:`robots.txt` file at *url*.
 
+   It also supports overriding the default *sslcontext* used to fetch the
+   :file:`robots.txt` file.
+
    .. method:: set_url(url)
 
       Sets the URL referring to a :file:`robots.txt` file.
diff --git a/Lib/test/test_robotparser.py b/Lib/test/test_robotparser.py
index 8d89e2a8224452..a18510d3536955 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_robotparser.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_robotparser.py
@@ -6,8 +6,11 @@
 from test import support
 from test.support import socket_helper
 from test.support import threading_helper
+from test.support import import_helper
 from http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, HTTPServer
 
+ssl = import_helper.import_module("ssl")
+
 
 class BaseRobotTest:
     robots_txt = ''
@@ -388,5 +391,29 @@ def test_read_404(self):
         self.assertIsNone(parser.crawl_delay('*'))
         self.assertIsNone(parser.request_rate('*'))
 
+
+class SSLContextOverrideTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
+    base_url = 'https://www.pythontest.net/'
+    robots_txt = '{}elsewhere/robots.txt'.format(base_url)
+
+    @classmethod
+    def setUpClass(cls):
+        support.requires('network')
+        # The URL has a self-signed CA. Ignore validation errors.
+        ctx = ssl.create_default_context()
+        ctx.check_hostname = False
+        ctx.verify_mode = ssl.CERT_NONE
+        with socket_helper.transient_internet(cls.base_url):
+            cls.parser = urllib.robotparser.RobotFileParser(cls.robots_txt, sslcontext=ctx)
+            cls.parser.read()
+
+    def test_basic(self):
+        self.assertFalse(self.parser.disallow_all)
+        self.assertFalse(self.parser.allow_all)
+        self.assertGreater(self.parser.mtime(), 0)
+        self.assertFalse(self.parser.crawl_delay('*'))
+        self.assertFalse(self.parser.request_rate('*'))
+
+
 if __name__=='__main__':
     unittest.main()
diff --git a/Lib/urllib/robotparser.py b/Lib/urllib/robotparser.py
index c58565e3945146..6a10b689d1eda3 100644
--- a/Lib/urllib/robotparser.py
+++ b/Lib/urllib/robotparser.py
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ class RobotFileParser:
 
     """
 
-    def __init__(self, url=''):
+    def __init__(self, url='', sslcontext=None):
         self.entries = []
         self.sitemaps = []
         self.default_entry = None
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ def __init__(self, url=''):
         self.allow_all = False
         self.set_url(url)
         self.last_checked = 0
+        self.sslcontext = sslcontext
 
     def mtime(self):
         """Returns the time the robots.txt file was last fetched.
@@ -59,7 +60,7 @@ def set_url(self, url):
     def read(self):
         """Reads the robots.txt URL and feeds it to the parser."""
         try:
-            f = urllib.request.urlopen(self.url)
+            f = urllib.request.urlopen(self.url, context=self.sslcontext)
         except urllib.error.HTTPError as err:
             if err.code in (401, 403):
                 self.disallow_all = True
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2021-04-06-19-47-43.bpo-43597.vQvHc8.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2021-04-06-19-47-43.bpo-43597.vQvHc8.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000000..22944ababc60c8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2021-04-06-19-47-43.bpo-43597.vQvHc8.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+:meth:`urllib.robotparser.RobotFileParser.read` supports passing an additional argument -
+*sslcontext*. This allows a user to override the sslcontext when reading a
+robots.txt from a remote url. Patch by Tarun Chinmai Sekar.