NEW DELHI: If a woman continues to maintain a physical relationship with a man for a long time despite knowing it won’t fructify in marriage, she cannot accuse him of rape on the ground that he made a false promise of marriage, the Supreme Court has ruled.

The verdict of Justices D Y Chandrachud and Indira Banerjee came as it quashed the rape case lodged by an assistant commissioner of sales tax against a deputy commandant of CRPF. They were in a relationship for six years and lived in each other’s houses on multiple occasions, which showed they were in a consensual relationship, the court said.

The complainant who knew the CRPF man since 1998 alleged he had forcibly established a sexual relationship with her in 2008 on the promise of marriage. The relationship continued till 2016 during which they used to visit each other’s house and stayed together for days. In 2014, he raised concerns about marriage on the ground of her caste but they continued to remain in a relationship. She filed FIR against him in 2016 when he told her about his engagement with another woman. The bench said any false promise of marriage must be of immediate relevance or bear a direct nexus to the woman’s decision to engage in the sexual act. It said there is a distinction between a false promise given on the understanding by the maker that it will be broken, and the breach of a promise which is made in good faith but subsequently not fulfilled.

“Where the promise to marry is false and the intention of the maker at the time of making the promise itself was not to abide by it but to deceive the woman to convince her to engage in sexual relations, there is a misconception of fact that vitiates the woman’s consent. On the other hand, a breach of a promise cannot be said to be a false promise. To establish a false promise, the maker of the promise should have had no intention of upholding his word at the time of giving it,” the court said.

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In Video: SC says its not rape if woman maintains relations without promise of marriage