The Supreme Court has ruled that criminal proceedings cannot be used as a means of pressuring someone into marriage, holding that the failure of a relationship or a subsequent breakdown of marriage plans does not, by itself, turn a consensual relationship into a criminal offence.
A bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran made the observations while quashing the prosecution of a man accused of sexually exploiting a woman on the promise of marriage.
The court said that where two people have been in a consensual relationship, consent cannot retrospectively be treated as having been obtained through coercion or a misconception of fact simply because the relationship later ended and the proposed marriage did not take place.
When does a promise to marry become legally significant?
The court stressed that a consensual sexual relationship can amount to an offence on the ground of a false promise to marry only when there is sufficient evidence that, from the outset, the accused had no intention of honouring the promise.
A later failure to marry is not automatically proof that the original promise was false.
In reaching its conclusion, the bench relied on the Supreme Court’s 2013 judgment in Deepak Gulati v State of Haryana, which held that a subsequent failure to fulfil a promise to marry does not by itself establish that consent was obtained through a misconception of fact.
Couple had been in a relationship for three years
The case before the court involved a man and woman who met while preparing for competitive examinations at the same academy. They developed a relationship, and their families subsequently discussed the possibility of marriage.
According to the judgment, the couple remained in a physical relationship for approximately three years. The relationship was known to both parties, and the woman would reportedly inform the man when her mother was away from home.
The relationship eventually ended, and the marriage discussions between their families also fell through.
A criminal case was subsequently registered in Bilaspur in 2025, alleging that the man had sexually exploited the woman on the pretext of marrying her.
One of the issues before the Supreme Court was an undertaking the man had allegedly given at a women’s police counselling center, stating that he would marry the woman.
The court found that the undertaking could not, by itself, establish that the relationship had originally been based on a false promise of marriage.
By the time the undertaking was given, the couple had already been in a relationship for around three years. The court also noted that the undertaking appeared to have been made in the context of criminal proceedings and could not reasonably be treated as evidence of an earlier promise that had induced the relationship.
The judgment noted that the woman had stated that she would withdraw the criminal complaint if the man agreed to marry her.
Consent cannot be reinterpreted after a relationship ends
The bench cautioned against broadly applying the legal concept of consent obtained through “fear or misconception” to relationships that were otherwise consensual.
The court said criminal liability cannot be imposed merely because a relationship eventually breaks down, particularly where the evidence indicates that both parties willingly entered into and continued the relationship.
The judges found that the complaint did not contain a clear assurance or promise of marriage that could establish the necessary criminal intent from the beginning of the relationship.
Instead, the circumstances indicated that the couple had entered into the relationship after a period of courtship and continued it for several years.
The court therefore rejected the argument that the relationship could automatically be characterized as having occurred on the “pretext of marriage” simply because the marriage ultimately did not happen.
Charges quashed
After examining the material before it, the Supreme Court found no sufficient basis for criminal culpability in the case.
It consequently quashed the chargesheet against the man and ordered the closure of the sessions case pending before the Bilaspur court.
The ruling underscores an important distinction in cases involving alleged false promises of marriage: the fact that a promised marriage does not ultimately take place is not, by itself, enough to establish that the relationship was based on a criminally false promise from the beginning.
