Consensual sex not rape if promise of marriage is broken: Orissa HC
Cuttack, Jul 7: The Orissa High Court has said that if a consensual physical relationship was based on a promise of marriage which could not be materialised for some reasons, it cannot be considered rape.
The high court quashed the charge of rape faced by a Bhubaneswar-based man. The allegation against him was brought by a woman who is a friend of the petitioner and is in a matrimonial dispute with her husband for five years.
The other allegations against the petitioner such as cheating are left open for investigation, Justice R K Pattanaik said in the order.
"There is a subtle difference between a breach of promise which is made in good faith but subsequently could not be fulfilled, and a false promise to marry.
"In the former case, for any such sexual intimacy, an offence under Section 376 IPC is not made out, whereas, in the latter, it is, since the same is based on the premise that the promise of marriage was false or fake from the very beginning," the high court order of July 3 read.
The Supreme Court in an order had said that if two persons maintained a physical relationship on an assurance of marriage to the victim, which due to some reasons failed to materialise later, it cannot be called rape with a claim that the promise had been broken, the bench observed.
"A sour relationship, if initially started and developed genuinely with friendship, should not always be branded as a product of mistrust, and the male partner should never be accused of rape," it said in connection with the case.
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Man accused of rape-murder of 5-year-old lynched to death in Bengal; Girl’s body found in pond
Alipurduar: A 40-year-old man accused of raping and murdering a five-year-old girl was allegedly tied to a tree and beaten to death by agitated locals in Alipurduar district located in West Bengal on Friday evening. Later, another man surrendered before the police claiming he was also involved in the crime, and was subsequently arrested.
The girl went missing on Friday evening. When her family began searching for the girl, they learned that she had last been seen with Mona Roy, as reported by the Indian Express.
The police said that the girl’s body was found floating in a local pond. They added that the locals caught Roy and took him to his residence where they allegedly noticed blood on the bed. Enraged by this, they tied Roy to a tree and started assaulting him.
Roy was beaten to death before the local police could reach the spot.
When the police arrived at the scene, angry locals prevented them from moving the two bodies. Eventually, a large team of police personnel was sent to the location. After two hours, they were able to remove the bodies from the area.
The bodies have been sent for a post-mortem examination.
Meanwhile, a man named Bhakta Roy approached the police, claiming that he was involved in the crime and feared for his safety from the angry mob. He was subsequently arrested.
Y. Raghuvanshi, Superintendent of Police, Alipurduar, asserted it is a heinous crime, adding that they have started a detailed investigation in connection to the incident.
