In the recent past there have been number of instances where the adult male and female persons spend few years together in live in relationship. Now if for some reasons this relation ship breaks or boy ditches the girl and marry some other girl, then the girl who was in live in relationship goes to police station and file a complain of rape against the boy. Now as the molestation and rape is a serious crime, the boy is immediately charge sheeted, and in some instances the case go to the court. Now SC court has given their judgement in a similar case, which is going to have impact on such live in relationships.
The Supreme Court said that in a prolonged relationship, consensual sex between a couple cannot be categorised as rape, if the man fails to keep the promise of marriage to the woman.
A 3 judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India, said that making a false promise to marry is wrong. Even a woman should not promise to marry and then break away. But that does not mean in a prolonged live-in relationship, sexual intercourse would be categorised as rape.
The case pertained to two call centre employees who were in a live in relations for five years. The man finally married another woman, leading to the lady slapping rape charges against him. She accused the man of indulging in sexual intercourse on the false promise of marriage.
The man through his counsel told the court that if consensual sex in a live in relationship result in rape charges, which leads to the arrest, it could set a dangerous precedent. The lady told the court that the man had displayed to the world that they were living as husband and wife and had married the woman in a Temple, but wriggled out of the promise after assaulting and extorting money.
“It is a good case for you to seek discharge from the trial court,” the Bench said. There’s a clear distinction between rape and consensual sex,” the Bench also said. The court protected the man from arrest for 8 weeks and asked him to find out from the trial court whether the prosecution was able to produce evidence to substantiate rape charges.
In an earlier similar case also, SC had given the similar judgement. That time the SC gave the order while quashing an FIR lodged by a Maharashtra-based nurse against a doctor, who were in a live-in relationship. She alleged in her complaint that she indulged in physical relationship with the doctor as he promised to marry her.
A bench of 2 judge gave the verdict “there is a clear distinction between rape and consensual sex,” adding that if “the accused has not made the promise [of marriage] with the sole intention to seduce the girl (woman) to indulge in sexual acts, such an act would not amount to rape”.
“The acknowledged consensual physical relationship between the parties would not constitute an offence under section 376 (rape) of the IPC,” the bench said.
Referring to the facts of the case, the court said they were living together for quite some time and when the woman came to know that the man had married someone else, she lodged the complaint.
“We are of the view that, even if the allegations made in the complaint are taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety, they do not make out a case against the man,” the bench said.
The man had approached the top court against the verdict of the Bombay high court which had dismissed his plea seeking quashing of the FIR lodged against him.
The similar kind of judgement have been given by SC in so many cases earlier but still you keep on reading about such cases periodically.
Morally it is wrong on the part of boy to ditch the girl after having sex with her on the pretext of marrying her. But the concept of live in relationship means the boy and the girl are living together on trial basis as couple, without marriage, to find out about each other, their compatibility and ascertain whether they can live happily even after marrying one another. So if in such cases if the relationship breaks then the girl can not accuse boy of raping her, but if boy goes on to marry any other girl without discussing with her why their the relationship can not go further, then it is wrong on the part of boy. In these type of cases where boy ditches the live in partner and marry some other girl, there should be some punishment for boy, otherwise it will become a practice by boys to stay in live in relationship, have sex with her and then ditch her.
In my opinion, this type of protection to boy by law is not fair to girl. Now if girl can prove that the boy had ditch her without discussing with her the cause of break in livein relationship, in such cases boy should be punished. As per the present law if a girl lodges a complain of rape then the police has to act of her complain .In many of such cases consensual sex become rape, which is not fair to boy. In such cases what is punishment for the girl.
Friends, I would love to see your views and comments on this matter.
Anil Malik
Mmbai, India
2nd March 2021