The Supreme Court has ruled that a consensual physical relationship between live-in partners cannot be termed as rape if the man does not marry the woman because of “circumstances that are not in his control”, PTI reported. The top court said this while rejecting a First Information Report filed by a Maharashtra-based nurse against a doctor, who had been in a live-in relationship.
A bench of Justices AK Sikri and S Abdul Nazeer, in their judgement on November 22, said there is a clear distinction between rape and consensual sex. “The court, in such cases, must very carefully examine whether the complainant had actually wanted to marry the victim or had mala fide motives and had made a false promise to this effect only to satisfy his lust, as the latter falls within the ambit of cheating or deception,” the court said, according to Live Law.
The court said if “the accused has not made the promise [to marry] with the sole intention to seduce the prosecutrix [the complainant] to indulge in sexual acts, such an act would not amount to rape”.
The Supreme Court, however, said that if the man had “any mala fide intention or clandestine motives”, then it was a clear case of rape. “There may be a case where the prosecutrix agrees to have sexual intercourse on account of her love and passion for the accused and not solely on account of the misconception created by accused, or where an accused, on account of circumstances which he could not have foreseen or which were beyond his control, was unable to marry her despite having every intention to do. Such cases must be treated differently,” the bench said.
The doctor had moved the top court after the Bombay High Court rejected his appeal to quash the FIR against him.
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