Nithyakalyani Narayanan. V
The Orissa High Court concluded that consensual physical relations between two people cannot be constituted as rape even if the promise of marriage was broken. Justice R K Pattanaik quashed the rape charge of a man, who was accused by his female friend and is in a matrimonial dispute with her husband for five years.
The court observed that “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.”
The Bench also declared that “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.”