The Supreme Court of India has ruled again that in a prolonged live-in relationship, consensual sex between a couple could not be categorized as rape if the man fails his to keep his promise to marry the woman.
“Making a false promise to marry is wrong. Even a woman should not promise to marry and then break up. But that does not mean in a prolonged live-in relationship, sexual intercourse would be categorized as rape,” a bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian said on Tuesday.
The bench was hearing a case related to two call centre employees who were in a relationship for five years, reports the Times of India.
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.
On January 3, 2019, the apex court of India ruled that rape charges could not be invoked in case of consensual sex between live-in partners after a relationship ended and the man failed to marry the woman due to circumstances beyond his control.
Earlier in 2018, the Supreme Court 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 consensual sex and rape.”
Through Monday’s hearing, 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 petition moved by the accused.
