The Supreme Court on Thursday quashed an FIR alleging rape on the false pretext of marriage, saying the facts unmistakably indicate towards a classic case of a consensual relationship turning acrimonious.
A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan observed that the parties should have exercised restraint and refrained from involving the State in their personal relationship turning rancour.
The top court referred to some of its earlier verdicts, including one that had taken note of the disquieting tendency wherein failed or broken relationships are given the colour of criminality.
The bench delivered its verdict on an appeal challenging a March last year order of the Chhattisgarh High Court that had refused to quash the proceedings arising out of the FIR registered in Bilaspur district in February 2025.
The court noted that both the complainant and the accused in the case were lawyers and the former was a 33-year-old married woman and the mother of a minor.
"It has been time and again settled by this court that the mere fact that the parties indulged in physical relations pursuant to a promise to marry will not amount to a rape in every case," the bench said.
"Upon a careful consideration of the record in the present case, we are unable to discern any material that would warrant the invocation of section 376(2)(n) of the IPC. The facts of the present case unmistakably indicate towards a classic case of a consensual relationship turning acrimonious," the bench said.
It said section 376(2)(n) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) provides for enhanced punishment in cases where rape is committed repeatedly on a woman.
The bench said courts have to be extremely careful and cautious in identifying genuine cases filed under the provision by identifying the essential ingredients to constitute the offence.
"Such genuine cases that deserve prosecution of the accused must be clearly demarcated from litigation that arises from cases of consensual relationships between consenting adults going acrimonious on account of dispute and disagreement or a future change of mind," it said.
The bench noted that although divorce proceedings between the complainant and her husband were pending adjudication, by no stretch of imagination could it be held that she was eligible to get married to the accused in September 2022, when the first of the multiple instances of rape on the false pretext of marriage was alleged.
"In other words, the law prohibits bigamous unions and therefore, disallows parties from entering into a second marriage during the subsistence of their first marriage," it said.
The bench said it is difficult to accept the view that the complainant, who herself is a lawyer, was oblivious to this settled position of law and was induced by the accused into having sexual relations on the pretext of marriage, especially when they were cognisant of her marital status.
It said the complainant was not a naive or gullible woman incapable of taking decisions for herself.
The court said the complainant should have exercised her prudence and discretion before engaging the already-burdened State machinery into a roving criminal litigation.
It observed that the offence alleged against the accused was not made out at all.
Setting aside the high court's order, the bench quashed the FIR and the consequent proceedings arising out of it.
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