A criminal prosecution cannot become a “strong-arm tactic” to force someone to marry, the Supreme Court has held, while adding that even an undertaking to marry under the threat of criminal prosecution cannot be used to establish a promise to marry.

The court quashed prosecution against a man accused of having sexually exploited a woman on the pretext of marriage. (HT PHOTO)

A bench of justices JB Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran said that consent in a relationship cannot be retrospectively treated as having been obtained through misconception or coercion merely because the relationship eventually ended and the proposed marriage did not materialise.

“A criminal prosecution cannot be reduced to a strong-arm tactic,” said the bench in its order released on Monday, while quashing the prosecution against a man accused of having sexually exploited a woman on the pretext of marriage.

The court stressed that for a consensual sexual relationship to constitute an offence on the ground that it was based on a promise to marry, there must be adequate evidence to show that, at the very beginning, the accused had no intention whatsoever of honouring the promise.

It relied on its 2013 judgment in Deepak Gulati Vs State of Haryana, which had held that a subsequent failure to keep a promise to marry, owing to circumstances that may not be clear from the evidence, does not by itself amount to a “misconception of fact”.

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In the present case, the woman and the appellant had met while preparing for competitive examinations at the same academy and fell in love. Their families had also discussed their marriage.

The court noted that the couple subsequently had a physical relationship, which continued for about three years. The relationship took place with the knowledge of both parties, and, according to the judgment, the woman would inform the appellant when her mother was away from home.

The relationship eventually ended, and the marriage proposal discussed by their families also fell through. This led to the registration of a case in Bilaspur in 2025 alleging that the man had sexually exploited the woman on the pretext of marrying her.

The court examined an undertaking allegedly given by the man before the Mahila Thana Counselling Centre, Bilaspur, to marry the woman.

The bench said such an undertaking could not, by itself, be treated as a promise to marry, particularly since it was made after the couple had been in a relationship for three years. The court observed that the undertaking would have been given under the threat of criminal prosecution and was, in any event, unenforceable.

The judgment noted that the woman had categorically stated that she would withdraw the criminal charge if the appellant married her.

“This undertaking also cannot be alleged to be a promise to marry, since by then admittedly there was a courtship of three years,” noted the bench, adding that the physical relationship could not, on the facts, be said to have been entered into through coercion or misrepresentation.

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The court cautioned against loosely invoking the concept of consent obtained through “fear or misconception” to criminalise an admittedly consensual relationship.

“We cannot but reiterate the proposition that consent under fear or misconception cannot be loosely inferred to fasten criminal liability on one of the parties when both, admittedly, had a consensual relationship and the other party willingly permitted a physical relationship,” it said.

The bench found no clear assurance or promise of marriage in the complaint that could establish the necessary criminal intent. Instead, it noted that the allegations suggested that the couple entered into the relationship after a period of courtship and continued it for three years.

The court rejected the suggestion that the relationship could be treated as having been based on a promise to marry merely because the marriage ultimately did not take place. “Clearly an afterthought,” the bench observed in its assessment of the allegation that the physical relationship had been on the “pretext of marriage”.

Finding no criminal culpability on the material before it, the bench quashed the chargesheet filed against the appellant and ordered closure of the sessions case pending before a Bilaspur court.