The Jharkhand High Court has quashed rape proceedings against a man accused of establishing a physical relationship with a woman on the promise of marriage, holding that a prolonged relationship between two consenting adults cannot, in the absence of material showing fraudulent intent from the outset, be converted into an allegation of rape merely because the proposed marriage eventually did not take place.
Justice Anil Kumar Choudhary passed the order while exercising jurisdiction under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023. The Court set aside the FIR, the subsequent criminal proceedings and the cognizance order passed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Giridih.
The case arose from a relationship that began in 2016 after the petitioner and the complainant met at a friend’s marriage ceremony. The prosecution alleged that the two subsequently remained in contact and that the man established a physical relationship with the woman after assuring her that he would marry her.
The complainant alleged that the relationship continued for more than seven years. She further alleged that in December 2022, the petitioner took her to Ranchi, where they stayed at a hotel and had a physical relationship. According to her complaint, the petitioner later ended the relationship and subsequently stopped responding to her communications.
The woman approached his family after the petitioner allegedly switched off his mobile phone in April 2023. She alleged that the petitioner and his family members abused her and declined to agree to the proposed marriage. A criminal case was thereafter registered, followed by investigation and submission of a charge-sheet. The trial court subsequently took cognizance of the alleged offence under Section 376(2)(n) of the Indian Penal Code.
Seeking quashing of the proceedings, the petitioner contended that the complainant was a major when the relationship commenced and that the association continued voluntarily for several years. His counsel argued that the circumstances surrounding the complaint demonstrated that the criminal case arose only after the petitioner and his family declined to proceed with the marriage.
The principal legal question before the High Court was whether the alleged promise of marriage was, from its inception, a deceptive assurance that vitiated the woman’s consent, or whether the subsequent failure to marry amounted only to a breach of an earlier promise.
The Bench relied upon the Supreme Court’s principles governing cases involving allegations of sexual relations induced by a promise of marriage. The Court noted that a promise cannot be characterised as a “false promise” merely because it is subsequently not fulfilled. What is material is whether the person making the promise had no intention of honouring it at the time it was made.
Applying that test to the facts before it, the High Court found no specific allegation demonstrating that the petitioner had entered into the relationship with a predetermined intention to deceive the complainant or that he never intended to marry her when the promise was allegedly made.
The Court also attached significance to the duration of the relationship. The association between the parties had continued for more than seven years, and there was no indication in the material before the Court that the complainant had protested against the relationship during that period. The FIR was lodged after the alleged refusal by the petitioner and his family to solemnise the marriage.
In these circumstances, the Bench concluded that the allegations, even if accepted at face value, did not disclose the ingredients necessary to sustain the offence under Section 376(2)(n) IPC.
The Court consequently held that the material indicated, at the highest, a consensual physical relationship between two adults and was insufficient to transform the subsequent breakdown of the relationship into a criminal allegation of rape.
Finding that continuation of the proceedings would amount to an abuse of the process of law, the High Court quashed the FIR, the criminal proceedings arising from it and the cognizance order dated August 16, 2024.
The ruling in Lalu Mahtha @ Lalu Mahta v. State of Jharkhand and Another, Criminal Miscellaneous Petition No. 915 of 2025, reiterates the distinction drawn by courts between a genuinely fraudulent promise of marriage and a relationship that subsequently fails to culminate in marriage. The decisive consideration, the judgment underscores, is not simply whether the promise was ultimately fulfilled, but whether it was dishonest and deceptive at the very point when it was made.
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