Failed relationships can’t be criminalised for false marriage promise: HC | Bhubaneswar News
Cuttack: Emphasising that law does not extend protection to every broken promise, nor does it impose criminality upon every failed relationship, the Orissa high court recently quashed rape charges against a 33-year-old man accused of having an intimate relationship with a woman on the promise of marriage.
The court’s intervention came in response to a petition filed on Nov 25 last year challenging an FIR filed by the woman at Balangir town police station in 2021.
“The assumption that every physical relationship between a man and a woman carries the implicit condition of matrimony is not a principle of law but a vestige of control,” Justice S K Panigrahi observed, calling for scrutiny of automatic criminalisation of failed relationships under the guise of “false promise of marriage“.
In his Feb 14 order which was uploaded on Feb 21, Justice Panigrahi said, “The petitioner and the woman entered into a relationship in 2012, when both were competent, consenting adults, capable of making their own choices, of exercising their own will, and of shaping their own futures. That the relationship did not culminate in marriage may be a source of personal grievance, but the failure of love is not a crime, nor does the law transform disappointment into deception.”
The judge stated that in the light of legal precedents, the concept of consent, and the principles of sexual autonomy, “this court finds that continuation of criminal proceedings against the petitioner would constitute an abuse of process”.
The complainant, in her early 30s, met the man in 2012 while both were pursuing a computer course in Sambalpur. Court records revealed their initial friendship evolved into a romantic relationship, which continued after the man got a job as a police sub-inspector.
According to the woman’s testimony, the couple allegedly solemnized their marriage at Samaleswari Temple, Sambalpur, on Feb 3, 2021. She claimed that though they had initiated marriage registration under the Special Marriage Act, the process remained incomplete as the accused failed to appear for registration on Mar 18, 2021.
The woman’s petition also claimed that she stayed with the accused in Bhubaneswar and Titilagarh in 2019, during which they maintained a physical relationship. She alleged this intimacy was established under the false promise of marriage. The man maintained that their relationship was consensual in nature.
The court observed that the fact the relationship lasted nearly nine years clearly showed that it was voluntary.
Justice Panigrahi also said the presumption that a woman engages in intimacy only as a prelude to marriage, that her consent to one act is but a silent pledge to another, is a vestige of patriarchal thought, not a principle of justice.
He said in its pursuit of justice, the law must not become an instrument of moral policing. Justice Panigrahi also said that society, for far too long, has treated sex as a transaction, where woman’s participation is conditioned upon the promise of marriage, and her agency is recognised only in so far as it aligns with this expectation.
“But the law must not succumb to such anachronistic notions. The ability of a woman to engage in intimacy on her own terms, free from coercion, from expectation, and from the weight of archaic social contracts, must be protected, not punished,” Justice Panigrahi observed.
The court’s intervention came in response to a petition filed on Nov 25 last year challenging an FIR filed by the woman at Balangir town police station in 2021.
“The assumption that every physical relationship between a man and a woman carries the implicit condition of matrimony is not a principle of law but a vestige of control,” Justice S K Panigrahi observed, calling for scrutiny of automatic criminalisation of failed relationships under the guise of “false promise of marriage“.
In his Feb 14 order which was uploaded on Feb 21, Justice Panigrahi said, “The petitioner and the woman entered into a relationship in 2012, when both were competent, consenting adults, capable of making their own choices, of exercising their own will, and of shaping their own futures. That the relationship did not culminate in marriage may be a source of personal grievance, but the failure of love is not a crime, nor does the law transform disappointment into deception.”
The judge stated that in the light of legal precedents, the concept of consent, and the principles of sexual autonomy, “this court finds that continuation of criminal proceedings against the petitioner would constitute an abuse of process”.
The complainant, in her early 30s, met the man in 2012 while both were pursuing a computer course in Sambalpur. Court records revealed their initial friendship evolved into a romantic relationship, which continued after the man got a job as a police sub-inspector.
According to the woman’s testimony, the couple allegedly solemnized their marriage at Samaleswari Temple, Sambalpur, on Feb 3, 2021. She claimed that though they had initiated marriage registration under the Special Marriage Act, the process remained incomplete as the accused failed to appear for registration on Mar 18, 2021.
The woman’s petition also claimed that she stayed with the accused in Bhubaneswar and Titilagarh in 2019, during which they maintained a physical relationship. She alleged this intimacy was established under the false promise of marriage. The man maintained that their relationship was consensual in nature.
The court observed that the fact the relationship lasted nearly nine years clearly showed that it was voluntary.
Justice Panigrahi also said the presumption that a woman engages in intimacy only as a prelude to marriage, that her consent to one act is but a silent pledge to another, is a vestige of patriarchal thought, not a principle of justice.
He said in its pursuit of justice, the law must not become an instrument of moral policing. Justice Panigrahi also said that society, for far too long, has treated sex as a transaction, where woman’s participation is conditioned upon the promise of marriage, and her agency is recognised only in so far as it aligns with this expectation.
“But the law must not succumb to such anachronistic notions. The ability of a woman to engage in intimacy on her own terms, free from coercion, from expectation, and from the weight of archaic social contracts, must be protected, not punished,” Justice Panigrahi observed.
