Married Woman Cannot Prosecute Accused For Rape On False Promise To Marry, Her Consent Not Based On Misconception: MP High Court

Madhya Pradesh High Court has ruled that a married woman engaging in a continuous sexual relationship with another man cannot resort to the plea that her consent was obtained based on a false promise to marry.

The single-judge bench of Justice Sanjay Dwivedi relied on several apex court judgments to iterate that consent cannot be regarded as one that has been obtained based on a misconception of fact when the prosecutrix was a married woman on the date of developing physical relations with the accused. From the factual circumstances, the court also inferred that it was a consensual relationship that continued for over 8 years before the prosecutrix obtained a decree of divorce from her husband in 2019.

“…on the date of developing physical relationship, the prosecutrix was a married lady and surrendering before the petitioner on a false promise of marriage does not fall within the definition of consent obtained on misconception of fact. Here it is a case that on the date of developing physical relation, the question of promise of marriage does not arise that too with a married lady as she was continued in relationship with the petitioner for a long period of 8 years…”, the bench sitting at Jabalpur observed.

While quashing the rape FIR against the accused, the court affirmed that there was no consent obtained by him from the prosecutrix based on a misconception of fact, and hence, the charge of Section 376 IPC will not sustain.

“…It is fit case, in which the FIR can be quashed on the ground that if the facts mentioned in the FIR are considered to be true at their face value even though the offence of 376 is not made out because the existing facts do not fulfill the requirement of Section 375 of IPC so also the requirement of Section 90 of IPC of consent…”, the court accordingly noted by relying on the apex court judgments in Naim Ahamed v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2023 LiveLaw (SC) 66 and XXX v. State of Madhya Pradesh & Anr. (2024).

An FIR dated 19.05.2019 was registered against the accused at Police Station Piplani, District Bhopal, for the offences punishable under Section 376(2)(n) and 506 of the Indian Penal Code. According to the prosecution version, the prosecutrix became pregnant due to the physical relations she had with the accused after he promised to marry her.

There was a consensual physical relationship between the accused and the prosecutrix for over 8 years prior to the registration of said FIR, the counsel for the petitioner contended.

In 2012, the victim came in contact with the accused through Meta(formerly Facebook) and habitually visited the accused in Bhopal. According to the police, the accused promised to marry the prosecutrix, who was then residing with her husband in Lucknow, soon after his sister's marriage. Prior to the registration of FIR, both were living like husband and wife in Bhopal itself, as per the Section 164 CrPC statement. Later, he left the prosecutrix and decided to marry another girl after the prosecutrix obtained a divorce from her husband, it was alleged by the state and respondent no.2-prosecutrix.

Counsel for the Petitioner: Adv. Rahul Deshmukh

Counsel For State: Adv. Shraddha Tiwari

Counsel for Respondent No.2: Adv. Vivek Agarwal

Case No: M.Cr.C. No.31926 Oof2019

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (MP) 135

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