New Delhi, 30 October (H.S.): The Supreme Court has expressed concern over the growing tendency to initiate criminal proceedings following the breakdown of personal relationships. The court observed on Friday that when two adults engage in physical intimacy with mutual consent during a relationship, such intimacy cannot subsequently be characterised as rape merely because the relationship turns sour or comes to an end.

A bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and R. Mahadevan delivered the significant ruling while discharging a Kerala-based man from charges of rape and cheating.

The court observed that obtaining consent through deception or fraud from the very outset was an entirely different matter. However, retrospective regret over past decisions, merely because a relationship has ended, cannot by itself constitute grounds for initiating criminal proceedings.

The bench said that converting every failed relationship into a rape case could seriously undermine the personal liberty and reputation of the accused.

The court further observed that no individual could be compelled to remain in a relationship merely out of fear that ending it might lead to a rape complaint being filed against him. It cautioned that turning every unsuccessful relationship into a rape case would dilute the gravity and legal seriousness of the grave offence of sexual violence.

The accused in the case, Santosh Kumar N.P., had challenged before the Supreme Court a Kerala High Court order rejecting his discharge application and his plea seeking the quashing of the criminal proceedings against him.

The complainant had alleged that the accused concealed his first marriage before marrying her. She claimed that he had entered into a second marriage with her while his earlier marriage was still subsisting.

According to the complainant, the accused led her to believe that their marriage was legally valid and, on that assurance, lived with her as husband and wife. She alleged that he had concealed his existing marital status and deceived her into entering the relationship.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar