NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday said in a prolonged live-in relationship, consensual sex between a couple could not be categorised as rape if the man failed to keep his promise of marriage to the woman.
“Making a false promise to marry is wrong. Even a woman should not promise to marry and then break away. But that does not mean in a prolonged live-in relationship, sexual intercourse would be categorised as rape,” a bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian said.
The case related to two call centre employees who were in a live-in relationship for five years. The man finally married another woman, leading to the spurned lover slapping rape charges against him, accusing the man of indulging in sexual intercourse on the false promise of marriage. Appearing for the man, senior advocate Vibha Datta Makhija said if consensual sex in a live-in could result in rape charges, which leads to arrest of the man, it would set a dangerous precedent.
SC: Using ‘habitual’ for survivor impermissible
The complaint’s counsel Aditya Vashishth said the man had displayed to the world that they were living as husband and wife and had married the woman in a temple but had wriggled out of the promise after assaulting her and extorting money.
When Makhija said there was a “habitual” aspect to the complainant and alleged that she had done the same to two other men, the bench said using the word “habitual” for rape survivors was impermissible under law. Makhija said she was aware of the sensitivity of the issue but termed the complainant’s allegations false.
The bench protected the man from arrest for eight weeks and asked him to find out from trial proceedings whether the prosecution was able to produce evidence to substantiate rape charges. “It is a good case for you to seek discharge from the trial court,” it said while disposing of the man’s petition. In 2018, the SC in two judgments had held that if a woman was voluntarily in a live-in relationship, it would be tough to categorise sexual intercourse as rape. It had also said, “There’s a clear distinction between rape and consensual sex.”