In a significant ruling that could redefine the boundaries between romance, cohabitation, and criminal law, the Supreme Court of India has drawn a clear line: a long-term live-in relationship cannot be recast as rape merely on the claim of a broken promise to marry.
Delivering its verdict in a case involving Ravish Singh Rana and a woman with whom he shared years of cohabitation, the Court dismissed the woman’s accusation of rape on the grounds of false promise of marriage. The top bench — led by Justices Sanjay Karol and Manoj Misra — made it clear that when two consenting adults live together for an extended time, the law cannot pretend they were naïve passengers in a train headed for matrimonial station.
“If two able-minded adults share a household and a bed for years, the Court cannot presume their choices were driven only by a marriage prospectus,” the Bench observed. “There’s a presumption of voluntary choice. The notion that the entire relationship was rooted in a hollow promise of marriage doesn’t hold up — especially when no claim is made that intimacy would’ve been denied otherwise.”
The judgment was firm in rejecting a mechanical or moralistic lens for such cases. What may have seemed unusual a generation ago — live-in relationships — is no longer alien to modern India. The Court acknowledged that increased financial independence among women has reshaped social contracts, and courts need to keep pace rather than act as outdated arbiters of morality.
In this particular case, the couple had reportedly met via Facebook and moved in together. The woman alleged that Rana had promised marriage, used that promise to engage in sexual relations, and later turned violent, refusing to marry and assaulting her. The FIR included charges of rape and assault.
The Supreme Court, however, found no basis for the rape allegation. It ruled that prosecution solely on the basis of refusal to marry, after years of cohabitation, would stretch the law beyond reason. “The length and nature of the relationship implies mutual consent,” the Court said, adding that any desire to formalize the bond through marriage does not transform the entire history of intimacy into coercion.
With this judgment, the FIR against Rana was quashed, and the earlier order of the High Court — which had refused to intervene — was overturned.
As live-in relationships become more commonplace, the ruling signals a shift in how courts may interpret consent, choice, and responsibility in adult relationships — refusing to reduce the complexities of lived life into legal binaries.
