Observing that consensual relationships are increasingly being criminalized after they fall apart, the Allahabad High Court has quashed a rape and physical assault case against a man, ruling that a breakdown in a relationship does not automatically constitute a criminal offense.
In an order passed on May 20, Justice Vivek Kumar Singh allowed a plea to quash the chargesheet, cognisance order, and the entirety of the criminal proceedings against the accused. The court warned against the “futility” of continuing trials that amount to a gross misuse of the judicial system.
The ruling addresses a case registered under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including Section 376 (rape), Section 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), Section 342 (wrongful confinement), and Section 506 (criminal intimidation).
“This Court has seen in a large number of cases, that there is a growing trend that consensual relationships going on for a prolonged period, upon turning sour, have been sought to be criminalised by invoking criminal jurisprudence,” Justice Singh observed.
The Marriage Promise and the Fallout
The prosecution’s case began after the accused purchased a mobile phone for the woman, initiating a year-long period of continuous communication and growing intimacy. According to the woman, the relationship progressed under the promise of marriage.
However, tension arose when she began pressuring the accused to marry her. She alleged that the man made excuses, eventually threatened to kill her, and forcibly established physical relations on the pretext of marriage. She further claimed that when she later confronted him, she was physically abused and threatened in the presence of his family members.
In contrast, the counsel for the accused argued that the two had been in a continuous, consensual relationship for a year, and that the First Information Report (FIR) was only filed as a retaliatory measure when the relationship failed to work out.
No ‘Cheating from Inception’
In evaluating the case, the Allahabad High Court drew upon established legal precedents to distinguish between a broken promise of marriage and the crime of rape. The court clarified that a consensual physical relationship cannot be treated as rape unless there is clear evidence of deception right from the start.
“It is crystal clear that if the parties were in a long-standing and continuous consensual physical relationship, without any element of cheating from the inception, such a relationship would not amount to rape,” the court noted.
Justice Singh emphasized that a promise of marriage does not constitute a “misconception of fact” for sexual intercourse unless it is proven that the promise was entirely false and made with deceitful intent from the very beginning. Because the prosecution could not show that the accused had zero intention of marrying the woman at the start of their relationship, the court ruled that the primary legal ingredients for a rape charge were entirely missing.
The court further noted that the promise of marriage was “non-est” (non-existent in the eyes of law as a deceptive tool) at the inception of their intimacy, meaning the woman could not legally hold the accused liable for a breach of promise under criminal law.
FIR Lodged to ‘Exert Pressure’
A key turning point in the court’s decision was the woman’s own statement recorded under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). In her statement, she explicitly expressed her ongoing desire to marry the accused.
The court concluded that the legal proceedings were initiated not because a crime had occurred, but as a tool for coercion.
“It appears from her statement that the FIR was lodged by the victim to exert pressure upon the applicant to get married to the victim,” the court remarked, adding that the woman was simply annoyed by the accused’s behavior and unwilling to let him go.
Furthermore, the High Court dismissed the auxiliary allegations of physical assault, wrongful confinement, and criminal intimidation. The court termed the subsequent assault allegations as “concocted” purely for the sake of filing the FIR, noting they were completely unsupported by any material evidence or particulars.
Concluding that allowing the trial to continue would be a “gross misuse of criminal jurisdiction,” the court allowed the application under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) and officially quashed the chargesheet and all ongoing criminal proceedings against the man.
