Ranchi: The Jharkhand High Court, while hearing a case, held that a long-term consensual physical relationship between two adults cannot be treated as rape merely because the man later refused to marry the woman. The court said a promise of marriage can be considered false only when there was no intention to fulfil it from the very beginning.
A bench of Justice Anil Kumar Choudhary quashed the FIR, cognizance order and entire criminal proceedings against Lalu Mahto. The case involved a relationship that continued from 2016 until April 2023.
The court observed that there was no specific allegation showing that the accused had never intended to marry the woman from the beginning. It held that merely backing out of a promise to marry at a later stage does not, by itself, constitute rape.
