PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE/Nainital
In an important decision on an issue affecting the nation, the Uttarakhand High Court has stated that one cannot be categorised as a rapist for refusal to marry after a long-term consensual relationship between two adults. The court stated that merely refusing to fulfill a promise a marry is not a crime under the IPC untill it’s proved that the promise was a lie from the start.
According to case details, a woman residing in Mussoorie accused a man of indulging in physical relationship with her on the “false promise of marriage”. She claimed that they were in a relationship and that the man had assured to marry her within a set period. The police probed the case and filed a chargesheet which was challenged by the man in the High Court. The counsel representing the accused stated that both the parties were adults and were in a long-term relationship by mutual consent. There is no concrete evidence to show that the man intended to dupe the woman from the beginning. The State government counsel and the woman’s advocate objected to the petition claiming that the woman had entered into the relationship only on the promise of marriage which was not fulfilled.
Hearing on the matter, justice Ashish Naithani said that consent given by an adult woman cannot be considered otherwise only because the relationship did not convert into a marriage later. The court found that both the parties were living together for a long time and were physically interacting repeatedly, which points towards a consensual relationship rather than a fraud. The HC stated that continuing a criminal case without any concrete basis can become a means of harassment of the accused. The HC dismissed the pending criminal case against the accused man in the court of the Dehradun chief judicial magistrate.
