The Madhya Pradesh High Court recently held that a married woman cannot claim that her consent for physical relations with another man was taken on the pretext of a false promise of marriage [Veerendra Yadav v. The State of Madhya Pradesh].

Justice Maninder S Bhatti quashed a rape case against a man booked on the complaint of a married woman last year.

Taking note of various rulings in similar cases, the Court said,

“The aforesaid judgments of the Apex Court as well as this Court postulate that when the prosecutrix is married lady, and therefore, her consent for physical relationship on the garb of false promise of marriage cannot be brought within the framework of the consent obtained on the basis of ‘misconception of the fact’.”

The accused, who himself was married to another woman, had moved the High Court after the woman (complainant) accused him of rape. The woman was married to a driver and has two children. 

She claimed that the accused used to reside in their neighborhood and they were in a friendship for three months. It was alleged that the accused had promised to marry her after divorcing his own wife and thus established a sexual relationship with the complainant.

However, he allegedly later declined to marry her, stating that he was not in a position to divorce his own wife. 

The Court examined the complainant’s statement and found she was in a relationship with the accused for three months and whenever her husband would go out, the accused would visit her and have sexual relations with her.

“Therefore, it cannot be said that the consent was given by the prosecutrix under some misconception of fact. Moreover, if the FIR is perused carefully and subjected to microscopic scrutiny it would reveal that there are no allegations that the present applicant pressurized the prosecutrix to enter into wedlock under the garb of false promise of marriage,” it added.

The Court further said that the first information report (FIR) did not reveal that there was a false promise of marriage that led the complainant to enter into a sexual relationship.

“In such a case, the FIR is required to be nipped in the bud, as the same would entail in the long drawn process of conduct of trial whereas the allegations levelled in the FIR on their face value, do not indicate the commission of offence under the aforesaid sections,” the Court said it at quashed the case.

Case title : Veerendra Yadav v State of Madhya Pradesh.