A Delhi court has described sexual relations between a woman and a man as consensual, yet held the man guilty of rape and unnatural sex, saying that he had obtained the consent on the false promise to marry her.

The two worked in a multinational company in Gurgaon and were friends. One day in December 2011, Prashant Kaushal went to the woman’s home in Dwaraka in South Delhi wanting to see her.

He then raped her despite resistance, the victim said in her complaint, adding that when she started crying he promised to marry her.

Thereafter, the accused took her out of Delhi on several occasions to different places and raped her. The parents of the accused also assured her that their son would marry her once he obtained divorce from his wife, the victim said in her complaint as well as in her statement before a Metropolitan Magistrate.

But the woman finally called the bluff of the man after he failed to get divorce for more than two years of the sexual assault on her.

She reached the Dwarka North police station in June 2014 and lodged a complaint.

“…the sexual relations between the prosecutrix and the accused, though being consensual, the consent of the prosecutrix to the same cannot be termed as free and voluntary for the reason that the same was induced by the accused by falsely representing to her that he is obtaining divorce from his wife very shortly and is going to marry her,’’ Additional Sessions Judge Virender Bhat said while holding Kaushal guilty of rape (376), unnatural offences (377) and administering stupefying drug with intent to cause hurt (328) under IPC.