- According to the Kerala High Court, a promise to marry will only constitute rape if it was made with malicious intent, was tainted by fraud, or was not intended to be kept at the time it was made.
- Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas granted bail to a lawyer who had been charged with raping a female lawyer after making a promise to wed her and then breaking that promise.
- He noted that even if the sexual relationship between two willing partners did not result in marriage, it would not constitute rape in the absence of any circumstance that tainted the consent for sex.
- The judge stated that even if the parties had engaged in a physical relationship, a subsequent reluctance to be married or a failure to lead the relationship into marriage were not grounds for rape.
- The court ruled that "a man and a woman's sexual interaction can only amount to rape if it is done against her will, without her consent, or when consent is obtained by force or deception."
- It was crucial that the woman's decision to engage in the sexual act was motivated by the promise of marriage for a physical contact between a man and a woman to be classified as rape owing to the breach of the marriage promise.
- According to the court, a sexual relationship between two consenting adults would not constitute rape under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code unless the permission was obtained fraudulently or via misrepresentation.
- The court ruled that in order to prove a false promise, the promise's creator had to have no intention of keeping his word when he made it, and the promise itself had to have persuaded the lady to consent to the sexual contact.
- The promise of marriage must be directly related to the act of physical union. The Supreme Court had previously established the aforementioned guidelines in a case, the court found.
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