The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to the Bihar government and IPS officer Pushkar Anand, agreeing to hear a plea from a Bihar Police woman officer challenging a Patna High Court decision that quashed an FIR against Anand, whom she accused of raping her under the pretext of marriage. The case is scheduled for hearing on March 24, 2025.
Justices K V Viswanathan and S V N Bhatti, presiding over the bench, directed the notice following submissions by the woman officer’s counsel, Advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey. Dubey contended that the High Court’s decision on September 19, 2024, was “perverse, devoid of any legal merits, and contrary to settled law.”
The woman officer, currently serving as Superintendent of Police (SP) with Patna CID, lodged the FIR on December 29, 2014, at the Mahila Police Station in Kaimur, Bihar. The complaint named Anand, then serving as SP, and his parents, accusing them of rape, criminal intimidation, and abetting the crime.
According to the woman’s allegations, Anand began approaching her through social media two days after she joined as Deputy SP in Bhabua. The relationship, which initially seemed headed towards marriage, turned physical on the understanding of an eventual marriage. However, the marriage proposal fell through when their horoscopes were found to be incompatible.
The Patna High Court, in its judgment, noted that the woman had been in a consensual relationship with Anand and had established physical relations willingly. It ruled that the failure of the relationship due to reasons like incompatible horoscopes did not warrant the initiation of criminal proceedings for rape under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
