A bench of the Honorable Supreme Court of India recently in Maheshwar Tigga v. State of Jharkhand[1] while acquitting a man accused of raping a woman on pretext of marriage held that misconception of fact arising out of promise to marry has to be in proximity of time to the occurrence of sexual relations between individuals so as to invoke the provision of rape.
The allegations made were that the accused had been promising to marry the girl and on that pretext continued to establish sexual relations with her just like husband and wife.

The Trial Court convicted him under Sections 376, 323 and 341 of the Indian Penal Code[2] (hereinafter, the IPC). The Karnataka High Court dismissed the appeal.

When the matter reached the Supreme Court, a Bench comprising of Justice R. F. Nariman, Justice Navin Sinha and Justice Indira Banerjee noted that the accused belonged to the Scheduled Tribe while the girl belonged to the Christian community. The Court observed that letters exchanged between them produced as Exhibits, made it apparent that their love for each other grew with time.

The Bench observed:
They were both smitten by each other and passions of youth ruled over their minds and emotions. The physical relations that followed was not isolated or sporadic in nature, but regular over the years. The prosecutrix had even gone and resided in the house of the appellant. In our opinion, the delay of four years in lodgement of the FIR, at an opportune time of seven days prior to the appellant solemnising his marriage with another girl, on the pretext of a promise to the prosecutrix raises serious doubts about the truth and veracity of the allegations levelled by the prosecutrix. The entire genesis of the case is in serious doubt in view of the admission of the prosecutrix in cross examination that no incident had occurred on 09.04.1999.

It was further observed:
The prosecutrix acknowledged that an engagement ceremony had also been performed. She further deposed that the marriage between them could not be solemnised because they belonged to different religions. She was therefore conscious of this obstacle all along, even while she continued to establish physical relations with the appellant.

On the question of misconception of fact, the Court observed:
Under Section 90 IPC, a consent given under a misconception of fact is no consent in the eyes of law. But the misconception of fact has to be in proximity of time to the occurrence and cannot be spread over a period of four years. It hardly needs any elaboration that the consent by the appellant was a conscious and informed choice made by her after due deliberation, it being spread over a long period of time coupled with a conscious positive action not to protest.

It was also observed by the Court that recently in Dhruvaram Murlidhar Sonar v. State of Maharashtra and Ors.[3] and in Pramod Pawar v. State of Maharashtra and another[4] where relationship originated from a love affair, developed over a period of time accompanied with physical relations, consensual in nature, but the marriage could not be solemnized as parties belonged to different castes and communities, the Apex court quashed the proceedings.

It was also observed that the prosecutrix was aware about the obstacles in the relationship because of different religious beliefs. From the letters and other evidence produced before the court it is not possible to hold that the appellant since inception never intended to marry the prosecutirix and had fraudulent intentions to only establish physical relations.
It was held that no offence against the appellant is made out and hence he was acquitted.

Importance Of This Judgment
The provision of rape has become a toy in the hands of people who want to settle scores with someone and moreover it has given undue freedom to women to indulge in consensual sexual relations with people and then file cases under this provision of law once the relationship ends.

In this matter the girl was completely aware of the hindrances in the relationship and willfully indulged in sexual relations. There was no force or coercion which is essence of the crime under Section 375 of IPC that defines rape.

If relations were not established by force or coercion, the provision under Section 375 will not get attracted and this is for the judiciary to consider while deciding such criminal cases.

End-Notes:

1. Crl Appeal No. 635 of 2020 arising out of SLP (Crl.) No. 393 of 2020.
2. Act 45 of 1860.
3. AIR 2019 SC 327.
4. (2019) 9 SCC 608.