The Delhi excessive court docket has acquitted a person in a rape case, ruling {that a} long-term consensual sexual relationship doesn’t routinely suggest the girl’s consent was solely primarily based on a promise of marriage.
The Delhi excessive court docket. (File Photograph)
A bench of justice Jasmeet Singh emphasised {that a} conviction for rape below the false pretence of marriage requires robust proof proving the connection was established solely on a damaged promise made in dangerous religion.
“Also, it is noted that if the consensual physical relationship continues for over a substantial/long/extended period, it cannot be said that the consent was purely based on the promise to marry. In order to convict a person on false pretext of marriage, there must be clinching and clear evidence that physical relations were established only on the basis of a promise to marry which was never intended to be kept,” the court docket stated within the February 13 order, launched on Saturday.
The person, who was 18 and a half years outdated on the time of incident, had approached the Delhi excessive court docket in opposition to metropolis court docket’s September 13, 2023 order of convicting him below Part 366 (kidnapping) and 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code and sentencing him for a interval of 10 years, observing that there was a false promise to marry.
The conviction had stemmed from a primary data report (FIR) filed by the girl’s father in November 2019, alleging that his 20-year-old daughter had gone lacking with the person. The 2 had been subsequently discovered at Dharuhera, Haryana and the person was arrested thereafter.
In his petition earlier than the excessive court docket, the person represented by advocate Pradeep Kr Arya had asserted that the current case was of consensual bodily relations primarily based out of affection and affection and there was no criminality concerned. The town court docket, the person argued, had failed to think about that there was no bodily relation on the alleged promise of marriage and the girl had accompanied him to the resort out of her free will.
The Delhi police represented by further public prosecutor Yudhvir Singh Chauhan submitted that the trial court docket had convicted the person by accurately appreciating the proof positioned on file and the judgement thus didn’t require any interference.
Nevertheless, the court docket in its 18-page verdict put aside the order noting that the 2 had been in love with one another and so they had subsequently entered right into a bodily relationship after the girl gave her consent for marriage. “The appellant and the prosecutrix were both adults, consenting individuals and established physical relationship being in love with each other and out of their own free will. The marriage for whatever reason could not happen between the appellant and the prosecutrix but it cannot be said that physical relations were established on account of false promise to marry,” the court docket maintained.