NEW DELHI: The Chhattisgarh High Court has upheld the acquittal of a man accused of rape on the pretext of marriage, holding that a long-term consensual live-in relationship raises a presumption of consent and that a subsequent refusal to marry, by itself, does not constitute the offence of rape.
The Division Bench of Justice Rajani Dubey and Justice Radhakishan Agrawal dismissed an appeal against a trial court’s acquittal, observing that a prolonged consensual relationship between two adults cannot automatically be criminalised merely because the relationship eventually ends without marriage.
The High Court held that to sustain a charge of rape based on a promise to marry, the prosecution must establish that the promise was false from the very beginning and was made solely to obtain the woman’s consent for a sexual relationship. A mere breach of a promise to marry, without evidence of initial deception, does not amount to rape, the Court observed.
According to court records, the couple had remained in a consensual relationship for several years before the marriage proposal fell through. The Bench noted that the duration and nature of the relationship indicated that the prosecutrix had voluntarily continued the relationship and that there was no material to show that her consent was obtained exclusively through a fraudulent promise of marriage.
The Court observed that every failed relationship or breach of a promise to marry cannot be converted into a criminal prosecution for rape unless it is proved that the accused never intended to fulfil the promise from its inception and used it only as a means to obtain consent.
In arriving at its conclusion, the High Court relied on settled principles laid down by the Supreme Court, which distinguish between a false promise made with dishonest intent from the outset and a genuine promise that could not ultimately be fulfilled. The Court said only the former could vitiate consent under criminal law.
Finding no evidence that the accused had induced the relationship through deception from the beginning, the High Court upheld the trial court’s acquittal, ruling that the prosecution had failed to establish the ingredients necessary to constitute the offence of rape.
