Recently, a sessions court in Ahmedabad said that a rape case is not a mode of forcing a man to fulfil his promise of marriage.
With this observation, the court acquitted a bank employee accused by a married woman of raping her on false promise of marriage.
In this case, the accused Bhavesh Patel, did not marry the woman after his parents did not agree to their decision of marriage.

The parents were against the relationship because the woman had two children from her first marriage. This happened in 2020 when the man introduced the woman to his parents and expressed his desire to marry her.

When Patel conveyed to the woman that he would not be able to marry her, she lodged an FIR against him under Sections 376, 420 and 506(2) of the IPC, accusing him of raping her after promising marriage, and cheating and criminal intimidation.
The woman had claimed that she had two children out of her first marriage that took place in 1999.

According to the complaint, the accused asked her to get a divorce from her husband so that they could marry. So she obtained a divorce from her husband in 2017 by making a divorce deed on a Rs. 100 stamp paper. But the accused didn’t keep his promise after their two-year of relationship.
As Bhavesh Patel was put on trial, additional sessions judge Amandeep Sibia refused to accept the woman’s accusations that she was “forced and lured into the relationship on a false promise of marriage.”

The court noted that the woman’s divorce was not valid and her marriage with the accused was not possible.
The court also said that the woman was 36 years old and a mother of two at the time of alleged incidents in 2017. She could not have been naive enough to get into a physical relationship with a person when she was already married.
“A married woman entering a relationship with the accused cannot say that he had cheated her by falsely promising marriage, as it is not possible for the accused to marry a married lady who had not obtained legal divorce”, said the judge.

“The accused had taken the prosecutrix (victim) to introduce her to his parents, but they did not give their consent for the marriage. In these circumstances, it cannot be said that the accused had cheated her. A prosecution under Section 376 IPC is not a mode of enforcing a promise of marriage,” the court said while acquitting the accused and dismissed the case.