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11 Apr 2019 2:23pm

GETTING CONSENT FOR ESTABLISHING PHYSICAL RELATIONS ON THE FALSE PROMISE OF MARRIAGE DOES NOT FREE THE ACCUSED FROM RAPE CHARGES: Supreme Court

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The brief facts of the present case, Anurag Soni v. State of Chhatisgarh are as follows:

The petitioner is a junior doctor and accused is a pharmacy student. He established physical relations with the petitioner on the pretext of getting married. She was promised by the accused that he would talk about their relationship to his parents and convince them to arrange their marriage. The lady many times tried to ask about the status of the situation, but to her surprise she received no replies. In the meantime, she got to know that the accused got married to some other girl. Hence, she charged him of rape. He was convicted by the Trial Court and sentenced for 10 years rigorous imprisonment.

Supreme Court bench comprising of Justice L. Nageswara Rao and Justice MR Shah said:

"If it is established and proved that from the inception the accused who gave the promise to the prosecutrix to marry, did not have any intention to marry and the prosecutrix gave the consent for sexual intercourse on such an assurance by the accused that he would marry her, such a consent can be said to be a consent obtained on a misconception of fact as per Section 90 of the IPC and, in such a case, such a consent would not excuse the offender and such an offender can be said to have committed the rape as defined under Section 375 of the IPC and can be convicted for the offence under Section 376 of the IPC."
The bench upheld his conviction but reduced his tenure of rigorous imprisonment to 7 years and said:

"The prosecution has been successful by leading cogent evidence that from the very inspection the accused had no intention to marry the victim and that he had mala fide motives and had made false promise only to satisfy the lust. But for the false promise by the accused to marry the prosecutrix, the prosecutrix would not have given the consent to have the physical relationship. It was a clear case of cheating and deception.

Merely because the accused had married with another lady and/or even the prosecutrix has subsequently married, is no ground not to convict the appellant-accused for the offence punishable under Section 376 of the IPC. The appellant-accused must face the consequences of the crime committed by him." 


Tagged: Rape Supreme Court Rigorous Imprisonment Justice L. Nageswara Rao Justice MR Shah
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