The Uttarakhand High Court has quashed rape and criminal intimidation charges against a 20-year-old man filed by a 28-year-old married woman, ruling that the relationship between the two was consensual and that the criminal case lacked legal merit.
Justice Pankaj Purohit, while delivering the judgment, dismissed the criminal proceedings against the young man, who was below the legally marriageable age for males at the time of the alleged incident. The woman, who is married and has a seven-year-old son, had accused the man of establishing physical relations with her under the false promise of marriage and of threatening to upload her videos on social media.
The case, filed in 2022, had led to the man being charge-sheeted under Sections 376 (rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code. A summons had been issued by the Judicial Magistrate’s Court in Kashipur based on the complaint.

However, the High Court raised serious doubts about the validity of the woman’s allegations. “How can a 28-year-old married woman, who is also a mother, be induced into a physical relationship by a 20-year-old man on the pretext of marriage, particularly when the man was not even of marriageable age?” the court asked.
Justice Purohit noted that the man’s age rendered any promise of marriage legally untenable. Furthermore, the woman’s marital status and her awareness of the legal impediment made the allegation of false promise implausible.
“The relationship appears to have been consensual and merely turned sour over time. It does not constitute rape or criminal intimidation as alleged,” the court observed.
The court concluded that the woman’s complaint did not meet the legal criteria for a criminal offence and that continuing the proceedings would amount to an abuse of the judicial process. Accordingly, the chargesheet and complaint were quashed, and all related criminal proceedings against the man were dismissed.