Adult woman can't cite fake marriage vow to claim rape: HC

KOLKATA: If an adult woman was in a consensual sexual relationship, then her “mere assertion or claim” of being raped and impregnated on a false promise of marriage was not enough in the absence of proper evidence, to indict her male partner, Calcutta HC said while overturning a sessions court verdict sentencing a man.

In her Nov 5 judgment, Justice Ananya Bandyopadhyay noted that the complainant had categorically stated she “willingly and without resistance” got into a physical relationship with the man, whom she later accused of rape. The man was convicted under IPC section 376 (rape) and sentenced to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment, by a Bankura additional sessions judge on July 12, 2011.

Disposing of the case, Justice Bandyopadhyay said: “The victim, being an adult woman, could not have been a prey to ‘ promise to marry ’ concept, foregoing her knowledge of subsequent possibilities, probabilities and eventualities if such promise was not acted upon.”