Consent obtained on a false assurance or promise of marriage amounts to rape under Section 375 of the IPC.

R.V. Easwar, J.

This application under Section 438 of the Cr.P.C. has been filed by one Abhishek Jain in case FIR No.128 of 2013 registered in PS Saraswati Vihar, North West District under Section 376/420/506/34 of the Indian Penal Code.

2. The application has been filed in the following circumstances. The complainant, Nirmal Kaur alias Neha Gabree, is aged 24 years and is working as Assistant Accounts Manager in a firm in Delhi. She got married to the applicant on 4.3.2013 in the Arya Samaj Mandir Trust. The marriage was also registered by the Registrar of Hindu Marriages, Ghaziabad on 4.3.2013. On 30.3.2013 the complainant filed a FIR against her husband Abhishek Jain, the applicant herein, stating that he raped her on the false pretext of marriage and also threatened to kill her. She referred to her earlier complaint dated 25.2.2013 where she had stated that Abhishek Jain was having an affair with her for more than two years before the marriage and that during that period, he had raped her several times in the false pretext and promise of marrying her. She also alleged that even after marriage he continued to torture her and physically abuse her. Action was therefore requested to be taken against the applicant/accused.

3. Apprehending arrest, the accused has filed the present application for anticipatory bail, the bail application filed by him before the Additional Sessions Judge having been dismissed by order dated 25.4.2013.

4. I have considered the facts and the rival contentions. The complainant filed a complaint earlier on 25.2.2013 with the SHO, Rani Bagh Police Station, Delhi. In that complaint she had stated how on several occasions before the marriage the applicant had raped her, after falsely promising to marry her. However, on 4.3.2013 the applicant and the complainant actually got married and there is evidence in the form of the certificate given by the Arya Samaj Vivah Mandir Trust, Ghaziabad and the certificate of registration given by the Registrar, Hindu Marriages, Ghaziabad. Both the certificates are dated 4.3.2013. The FIR also narrates the physical abuse which the complainant had suffered in the hands of the applicant after the marriage and that because the parents of the accused did not accept the marriage of their son with the complainant, the accused stayed away from them in a rented house in Rohini. The FIR further narrates that the accused even used to tell the complainant that he had married me only to make me withdraw my complaint. Apparently the accused had even lied about his job; he in fact did not have any job and was dependant on the complainant to meet the household expenses. He was also demanding money from her every now and then. Several instances are narrated in the FIR about the threats and physical abuse suffered by the complainant not only from the applicant but also by his family members who had conspired together to cheat her and get her married to him only to make her withdraw the complaint of rape against him.

5. The above specific averments in the FIR are grave. It is not clear to me why the applicant abused the complainant and inflicted physical injuries upon her by beating her if he really loved her and got married to her. The complaint dated 25.2.2013, a copy of which is on record, cogently narrates the long relationship which the complainant and the applicant had before their marriage during which time, as narrated by the complainant, the accused raped the complainant several times after falsely promising to her that he will marry her. Having sexual relations with a woman against her will or without her consent also amounts to rape under section 375 of the IPC. If the consent was obtained on a false assurance or promise of marriage, the consent cannot be considered to be full and free and it would be a case of rape. This is what appears to have happened to the complainant before the marriage took place on 4.3.2013. The complaint also contains reference to an occasion when