Because the alliance soured or broke, new Delhi, Concerned over the rising trend of filing criminal cases after the failure of relationships, the Supreme Court on Friday said that physical intimacy during good times cannot be branded as rape later just.
The victim alleged that the accused cohabited with her deceitfully, inducing the belief of lawful marriage.
The victim has alleged that after concealing an earlier marriage, he had effected a second marriage with her and had sexual intercourse with her based on the consent obtained as the outcome of an “illegal marriage” by means of fraud, according to the prosecution.
He married her while his earlier marriage was subsisting, she alleged.
The court has time and again witnessed the disturbing trend where failed relationships are converted into criminal cases, it added.
“Such an approach denudes the man of any agency entirely as the mere factor of being in a consensual relationship at one point would bind him to it entirely for fear of being accused of rape at a subsequent point of time,” the top court said.
The accused in the case, Santosh Kumar N P, has approached the top court challenging the Kerala High Court dismissing his discharge petition and a plea for quashing of the proceedings against him.
