Consent must be informed and cannot be vitiated solely by a promise to marry if the relationship is consensual. Quashing of proceedings is warranted when consent is not misrepresented.

ORDER

Dated : 28^th November, 2025 The petitioner is the sole accused in S.C. No. 1289 of 2022 on the file of the Additional Sessions Court (for the trial of cases relating to Atrocities and Sexual Violence against Women and children), Ernakulam. The offences alleged against the petitioner are under Sections 376 (2)(n), 417 and 506(i) IPC .

2. The prosecution case is that the accused with the intention to satisfy his sexual lust and to cheat the defacto complainant, came in contact with her through social media and thereafter promised to marry her and took her to various places and committed rape upon her and thereafter, when defacto complainant came to know that he was already married, he intimidated the defacto complainant and threatened to communicate her nude photographs and videos in social media and thereby he is alleged to have committed the aforesaid offences.

3. According to the learned counsel for the petitioner, even if the allegations raised against the petitioner are accepted as such, the same does not constitute the offence of rape as defined under Section 375 IPC , as it was only a consensual one. Therefore, he prayed for quashing all further proceedings against the petitioner.

4. The petition was strongly opposed by the learned counsel for the second respondent/defacto complainant and the learned Public Prosecutor. 5. As per the F.I. Statement, the defacto complainant came in contact with the petitioner, who was a practicing lawyer, being the lawyer of her father. Accordingly, she had given her contact number to the petitioner and in connection with the case of her father, they used to contact each other. Thereafter, the petitioner used to send her obscene messages, which she tolerated as he promised to marry her. According to her, he represented himself to her that he was not married and therefore when he came to her hostel with his car at about 06.00 p.m. on 02.10.2020, she accompanied him after informing the hostel warden as well as her friend. They together went to a hotel room at Chalakudy. According to the defacto complainant, the petitioner went outside the hotel room and returned with food items and coca-cola and after drinking the coca-cola, she felt dizziness. She does not remember as to what happened thereafter. She presumes that the petitioner might have sexually abused her during that night, as in the next morning she found that her dress was not in order. On the next day he took her in his car and dropped her at her hostel. According to her, thereafter on several days, she accompanied him to various places. At the instance of petitioner she had taken on rent a residential building and she told the landlord that the petitioner was her husband. The petitioner regularly used to visit her in the said rented house and she permitted him to have relationship with him as he promised to marry her. Subsequently she came to know from another lawyer that the petitioner was already married twice and had a child also in his second marriage. When she questioned the petitioner about his previous marriage, he intimidated her.

6. In the decision in Prashant v. State of NCT of Delhi , (2025) 5 SCC 764 , in paragraph 18 the Apex Court held thus :

“It is inconceivable that the complainant would continue to meet the appellant or maintain a prolonged association or physical relationship with him in the absence of voluntary consent on her part. Moreover, it would have been improbable for the appellant to ascertain the complainant's residential address, as mentioned in the FIR unless such information had been voluntarily provided by the complainant herself.”

7. Referring to two other earlier decisions, the Apex Court in paragraph 23 further held