A Criminal Prosecution Cannot Be a Strong-Arm Tactic: Supreme Court Quashes False Promise of Marriage Case

The appellant and the complainant met at an academy where both were enrolled, fell in love, and their families spoke to each other. On an understanding that they would marry, a physical relationship began and continued for about three years (para 5). They later separated and the marriage proposal fell through (para 6). An FIR at Sirgitti Police Station, District Bilaspur, alleged that he refused to marry her after sexually exploiting her on the pretext of marriage (para 2). It was also asserted that he had agreed before the Mahila Thana Counselling Centre to marry her but did not (para 6). The chargesheet had become Sessions Case No. 216 of 2025, posted for framing of charges (para 9).

The Court began with the passage it extracted from Deepak Gulati: there must be evidence that, at the very beginning, the accused never intended to marry, and a failure to keep a promise about an uncertain future date does not always amount to misconception of fact (para 4). Here the relationship was admittedly consensual and continued "unabated" for three years; the information that her mother was away could only have come from the complainant herself (paras 5-6). The undertaking before the counselling centre would have been given under threat of prosecution, was unenforceable, and could not be a promise to marry, since the courtship and physical relationship had already lasted three years (para 6). Even on a bare reading of the complaint there was no clear assurance of marriage; the pretext-of-marriage allegation was "clearly an afterthought" (para 7). The complainant, a well-educated woman, stated that she would drop the charge if he married her, and the Court said a criminal prosecution "cannot be reduced to a strong-arm tactic" (para 7). It found no criminal culpability, since the consent was neither coerced nor obtained by misrepresentation (para 8).