The Supreme Court on Friday held that the legislature never intended consensual sexual acts between adults in a mutually affectionate relationship to be retrospectively criminalised merely because the relationship came to an end, and discharged a man from charges in a rape case alleging sexual relations on a false promise to marry, LiveLaw reported. LawChakra, which also reported the order, identified the case as Santhosh Kumar N.P v. State-Station House Officer.

Source: LiveLaw

A bench of Justice B.V. Nagarathna and Justice R. Mahadevan flagged what it called a disturbing trend in recent years: consensual relationships that have ended are retrospectively combed with a fine tooth to identify what can, after the fact, be construed as violence and sexual assault.

The Court drew a clear distinction between two situations. The first is where the absence of consent rests entirely on a 'mirage of deceit and falsehood at the outset' — a promise false from the very beginning. The second is the 'experience of regret for having consented to past sexual acts owing to the later demise of the relationship', which, the Court said, while unfortunate, cannot convert a consensual relationship into a crime or set the criminal justice system in motion in a manner that deprives the accused of liberty and reputation.

'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. In such a scenario can it be said that the man has no right to withdraw from the relationship? Can the decision be termed as deceit or fraud? Clearly not,' the Court said, according to LiveLaw.

Physical intimacy during the currency of a functioning relationship 'cannot be retrospectively branded as an act of rape merely because the relationship soured and no longer subsists', the bench held. 'Rape being a heinous offence must be reserved for situations where there is real sexual violence, coercion or manipulation of consent,' it said, adding that converting every soured consensual relationship into an accusation of rape dilutes the gravity of the offence.

At the same time, the Court underscored that rape 'strikes at the core of a woman's bodily autonomy and dignity', acknowledged that rape offences remain heavily under-reported, and said genuine cases must be pursued with rigour where the facts clearly show sexual assault and violence — while the justice system must not be abused to harass a person merely for ending a consensual relationship.

Source: LawChakra