The Supreme Court has made it clear that a relationship does not become a criminal offence under Section 69 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) merely because a promised marriage eventually does not take place.
The Court recently quashed an FIR registered under Section 69 BNS after finding that the allegations themselves pointed towards a consensual relationship and did not establish that the man had used a false promise of marriage to obtain sexual consent.
A bench comprising Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice K Vinod Chandran was considering a challenge to a Gujarat High Court order that had refused to quash the proceedings against the accused.
The case arose from a relationship that began after the man and the complainant met through a digital platform. Their friendship developed into a romantic relationship. According to the complaint, the man expressed his intention to marry her when they first met physically, following which they entered into a sexual relationship.
The couple also stayed together at a hotel for two days in April 2024.
The relationship later broke down after the man’s mother opposed the proposed marriage. The complainant subsequently alleged that the sexual relationship had been established on the assurance of marriage.
The Supreme Court, however, found that the circumstances described in the FIR did not reveal the kind of deception contemplated by Section 69 BNS.
The Court explained that the provision was introduced by the BNS as a distinct offence dealing with sexual intercourse obtained through deceitful means, including a promise of marriage made without any intention of honouring it.
The crucial element, therefore, is the intention at the time the promise was made. A genuine promise that could not ultimately be fulfilled because of subsequent circumstances does not automatically become a deceitful promise.
The bench also pointed out that Section 69 occupies a different legal space from the manner in which such allegations were dealt with under the erstwhile Indian Penal Code. Before the BNS came into force, cases involving sexual relations allegedly induced by a false promise of marriage were examined through the provisions relating to rape and consent obtained under misconception of fact.
Referring to the principles laid down in Deepak Gulati v State of Haryana, the Court stressed that criminal liability cannot arise simply because a person eventually fails to marry. There must be material indicating that the promise was dishonest from the outset and was never genuinely intended to be fulfilled.
The Supreme Court found that such an indication was missing in the present case.
Instead, the allegations suggested that the parties had entered into a relationship voluntarily and that the dispute over marriage emerged later.
The bench observed that the complaint did not disclose any deceitful conduct in which the accused had deliberately induced the woman into sexual intercourse through a promise that he never intended to keep.
The fact that the accused ultimately declined to marry because his mother did not agree to the match, the Court said, could not by itself transform the earlier relationship into an offence under Section 69 BNS.
On that basis, the Supreme Court set aside the Gujarat High Court’s order and quashed the criminal proceedings arising from the FIR.
