- In the case of Abhishek vs State of Madhya Pradesh the Madhya Pradesh HC has termed live-in relationships as the by-product of Article 21 which promotes lascivious behaviours.
- The Court also observed that the people who want to exploit this freedom are quick to embrace it and are ignorant of the fact that the same does not confer any rights on any of the partners in the relationship.
- The facts of the instant case are that the victim had lodged an FIR against the applicant/accused alleging that she was friends with the accused. One day he called her to his room and offered her a drink, which she drank and fell unconscious. When she woke up she saw that she was naked, and upon asking the applicant she came to know that he had raped her and made a video of the incident.
- He threatened to make her video go viral and kept committing rape on her. When she got engaged to another man, he, being a jilted lover, started harassing her and her family by sending them messages and photographs and also threatened them saying that if the prosecutrix got married to another man, he would make her videos and photographs go viral.
- Pursuant to the lodging of the FIR under sections 376, 328, 313, 506 and 34 of IPC, the applicant moved the HC seeking anticipatory bail.
- The Court noted that as per the case diary and other documents on record, it appeared that the applicant and the victim were in a live-in relationship for quite some time, and the prosecutrix also got pregnant a couple of times. She got her pregnancies terminated under the alleged pressure of the applicant.
- Terming the acts of the applicant as ‘serious’ the Court denied the prayer of anticipatory bail of the accused. The Court also observed that the freedom of live-in relationship comes with its own limitations, in that no right is accrued to any of the parties. This by-product of Article 21 has engulfed the ethos of the Indian society and has led to a steep rise in sexual offences.
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