The Delhi high court has acquitted a man in a rape case, ruling that a long-term consensual sexual relationship does not automatically imply the woman’s consent was solely based on a promise of marriage.
A bench of justice Jasmeet Singh emphasised that a conviction for rape under the false pretence of marriage requires strong evidence proving the relationship was established solely on a broken promise made in bad faith.
“Also, it is noted that if the consensual physical relationship continues for over a substantial/long/extended period, it cannot be said that the consent was purely based on the promise to marry. In order to convict a person on false pretext of marriage, there must be clinching and clear evidence that physical relations were established only on the basis of a promise to marry which was never intended to be kept,” the court said in the February 13 order, released on Saturday.
The man, who was 18 and a half years old at the time of incident, had approached the Delhi high court against city court’s September 13, 2023 order of convicting him under Section 366 (kidnapping) and 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code and sentencing him for a period of 10 years, observing that there was a false promise to marry.
The conviction had stemmed from a first information report (FIR) filed by the woman’s father in November 2019, alleging that his 20-year-old daughter had gone missing with the man. The two were subsequently found at Dharuhera, Haryana and the man was arrested thereafter.
In his petition before the high court, the man represented by advocate Pradeep Kr Arya had asserted that the present case was of consensual physical relations based out of love and affection and there was no criminality involved. The city court, the man argued, had failed to consider that there was no physical relation on the alleged promise of marriage and the woman had accompanied him to the hotel out of her free will.
The Delhi police represented by additional public prosecutor Yudhvir Singh Chauhan submitted that the trial court had convicted the man by correctly appreciating the evidence placed on record and the judgement thus did not require any interference.
However, the court in its 18-page verdict set aside the order noting that the two were in love with each other and they had subsequently entered into a physical relationship after the woman gave her consent for marriage. “The appellant and the prosecutrix were both adults, consenting individuals and established physical relationship being in love with each other and out of their own free will. The marriage for whatever reason could not happen between the appellant and the prosecutrix but it cannot be said that physical relations were established on account of false promise to marry,” the court maintained.
