The Supreme Court stated that it would be foolish to prosecute someone for rape under Section 376 IPC and treat every broken pledge to wed as a false promise.
The bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M Trivedi noted this while acquitting a man who was concurrently convicted in a rape case. "One cannot deny a possibility that the accused might have given a promise to marry her with all seriousness, and thereafter might have encountered certain circumstances unforeseen by him or the circumstances beyond his control, which prevented him from fulfilling his promise," they said. The trial court handed out a ten-year prison term to him.
Facts
In this instance, it was established in writing that I the Prosecutrix was a married mother of three. (ii) The accused was residing in a rental property in front of the prosecutor's home. (iii) Despite her initial reluctance, the prosecutrix grew fond of the defendant, and the two began engaging in sexual relations. (iv) The relationship resulted in the birth of a kid. (v) In 2012, the prosecutor visited the defendant's hometown and learned that he was a married father of young children. (vi) The prosecutrix continued to live apart from the accused. (vii) The prosecutrix and her spouse divorced each other amicably in 2014, following which the prosecutrix permanently separated from her husband and their three children. (viii) On March 21, 2015, the prosecutrix filed a complaint, saying that she had consented to a sexual relationship with the accused because he had pledged to marry her but had not done so.
Considering these factual details, the bench concluded as follows while clearing the accuser:
The prosecutrix, a married mother of three, was mature and knowledgeable enough to comprehend the meaning and ramifications of the act, whether it was moral or immoral, to which she was giving her permission. It appears that she had betrayed her husband and three children by having a relationship with the accused, for whom she had grown to like, even if her entire conduct during the period of such a relationship with him is closely examined. In order to live a better life with the accused, she had moved in with him while her marriage to her husband was still going strong.She did not have any complaints against the accused of having made a false promise to marry her or of having cheated her until she got impregnated by him in the year 2011 and gave birth to a male child through the accused's loin. She also went to the accused's hometown in 2012 and learned that he was a married man with kids, but she continued to live with the accused at a different location without any issues. She even achieved a mutually agreeable divorce from her spouse in 2014, leaving her three children with him.
She didn't make the current complaint until 2015 when there must have been some disagreements between them. The accused claimed that she had filed the complaint because he refused to comply with her demand that he give her a significant sum of money in his subsequent statement recorded under Section 313 of the Cr.P.C.
Therefore, given the facts and circumstances of the case, it was impossible to believe that the prosecutrix had consented to the appellant's sexual relationship under pretenses to find the appellant guilty of committing rape by Section 375 of the IPC.
Court observation
Therefore, the bench overturned the decisions of the Trial Court and High Court except for the directive to compensate the prosecutrix.
Join LAWyersClubIndia's network for daily News Updates, Judgment Summaries, Articles, Forum Threads, Online Law Courses, and MUCH MORE!!"
