Penal Code, 1860 – s.376, 420, 504 and 506 – Complainant filed a complaint alleging that the appellant had cheated on her by forcibly engaging in sexual intercourse without her consent in his house and in the rented rooms from 2008 to 2017 by giving false promises of marriage, depositing fixed amount in her bank account and also promising to purchase a house for her – FIR was registered – Appellant sought to quash the said FIR, however, the petition was dismissed by the High Court: Held: In the instant case, even assuming that the appellant had made the promise since 2008 when they met for the first time, the fact that they remained unmarried for a long period till 2017 without there being any protest or objection by the complainant, does not indicate the intention at the initial stage itself to make the promise falsely to marry the complainant – Making an allegation of non-fulfilment of promise to marry without undue delay by the promissee would, on the other hand, be an indicator of a false promise being made from the initial stage – In the present case, what is not in dispute is that the physical relationship between the appellant and the complainant continued for a long period of about a decade and as such it is difficult to infer that the appellant had made a false promise since the initial stage and continued to make false promises to marry her on the basis of which she also continued to have physical relationship with him – The longer the duration of the physical relationship between the partners without protest and insistence by the female partner for marriage would be indicative of a consensual relationship rather than a relationship based on false promise of marriage by the male partner and thus, based on misconception of fact – The criminal liability attached to such false promise would be diluted after such a long passage of time and in light of the fact that no protest was registered by the complainant during all those years – Such a prolonged continuation of physical relationship without demurral or remonstration by the female partner, in effect takes out the sting of criminal culpability and neutralises it – It appears that discontinuance of financial support to the complainant, rather than the alleged resiling from the promise to marry by the appellant appears to be the triggering point for making the allegation by the complainant after a long consensual relationship for about nine years – In light of the aforesaid facts and circumstances, in the present case no prima facie case has been made out about commission of an offence of rape punishable under Section 376 IPC – Further, on perusal of the FIR it is also noted that no allegations of cheating have been made against the appellant to fall within the scope of Section 420 IPC nor of any of the offences under Sections 504 and 506 of the IPC – Therefore, under the circumstances, the appellant is entitled to the relief claimed for quashing the complaint/FIR. [Paras 25, 27, 28, 30, 34, 35]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Ankit Gyan. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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