Allahabad HC Quashes Rape Chargesheet Where One-and-a-Half-Year Consensual Relationship Soured After Applicant Married Another
Justice Vivek Kumar Singh quashed a Section 376 IPC chargesheet, finding a one-and-a-half-year consensual relationship between adults could not be recast as rape merely because the applicant declined to marry the complainant.
The Allahabad High Court has quashed a rape chargesheet and the cognizance order arising from it, holding that physical intimacy sustained voluntarily over one and a half years by a major, working woman cannot be characterised as rape on the ground that the man subsequently refused to marry her. Justice Vivek Kumar Singh, sitting singly, allowed an application under Section 528 BNSS filed by Lokendra Singh, a resident of Kanpur Nagar, and quashed Chargesheet No. 65 of 2024 dated 5 April 2024, the cognizance order dated 16 October 2024, and the entire proceeding in Criminal Case No. 108112 of 2024 pending before the Additional Civil Judge (Senior Division), Court No. 5, Kanpur Nagar. The court found the case to be a failed romantic relationship repackaged as a criminal complaint after the applicant's engagement to another woman became known to the complainant.
The Chargesheet and What It Alleged
The first information report was registered on 2 March 2024 at Police Station Gujaini, Commissionerate Kanpur Nagar as Case Crime No. 57 of 2024, under Sections 376, 504, and 506 IPC. The complainant alleged that she and Lokendra Singh had connected on Facebook, that their friendship became a romantic relationship on 19 February 2022, and that in May 2022 the applicant promised to marry her. On 7 July 2022, the two visited an under-construction building belonging to a friend of the applicant, where a physical relationship was first established.
In her statement recorded under Section 164 Cr.P.C., the complainant stated that physical relations were established on approximately 30 to 40 occasions in that building. The relationship continued for about one and a half years. In November 2023, the applicant refused to marry her. The complainant learnt through social media that he was to marry another woman. Talks between the families failed. The FIR was lodged on 2 March 2024, and the applicant's marriage to the other woman was solemnised on 4 March 2024.
During investigation, the Investigating Officer recorded statements from the complainant, the applicant's acquaintance Ashish (owner of the building), and others. Ashish stated that there was a love affair between the two but that a dispute later arose, both were majors, they frequently visited several places including hotels, and the complainant had lodged the FIR “in anger.” The FIR did not mention the date, time, or precise place of the first alleged rape. The chargesheet was submitted and the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Kanpur Nagar, took cognizance on 16 October 2024.
The applicant had previously filed Criminal Misc. Writ Petition No. 3959 of 2024, and a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court had stayed his arrest by order dated 22 March 2024. The present application under Section 528 BNSS sought quashing of the chargesheet and the cognizance order.
Arguments on Each Side
Counsel for the applicant, Sri Mahendra Pratap Singh, argued that the FIR was a product of a broken relationship, filed only when the complainant learnt of the applicant's engagement. The FIR omitted any date, time, or place for the first alleged offence. The complainant's version shifted between the FIR, her Section 161 Cr.P.C. statement, and her Section 164 Cr.P.C. statement. No external injuries were found on the complainant's body. She admitted to being about 20 years of age when her statements were recorded, and her high-school certificate showed a date of birth of 17 January 2003, a fact not denied in her counter affidavit. She was a working woman, also not denied. The applicant submitted that no criminal offence under Sections 376, 504, or 506 IPC was made out and that continuing the proceedings would amount to a miscarriage of justice.
Sri Raj Kumar Shukla, counsel for the victim, and Sri O.N. Mishra, the Additional Government Advocate for the State, countered that the applicant had exploited the complainant for one and a half years under a false promise of marriage that was dishonest from the outset. The complainant was abused and threatened when she approached the applicant's family. The Investigating Officer found sufficient material to submit the chargesheet, and a prima facie case was made out from the FIR and the statements under Sections 161 and 164 Cr.P.C.
The Legal Framework Applied
Justice Vivek Kumar Singh identified the core question as whether the material gathered by the Investigating Officer made out a prima facie case of rape, or whether continuation of proceedings would amount to an abuse of the process of law.
The court set out the well-established position that the jurisdiction to quash an FIR, complaint, or chargesheet must be exercised sparingly and only in exceptional cases. It reproduced the seven-category guidelines from the Supreme Court's decision in State of Haryana v. Ch. Bhajan Lal, AIR 1992 SC 605, noting that quashing is warranted where, even accepting the allegations at face value, no prima facie offence is constituted, where the allegations are inherently improbable, or where the proceeding is manifestly attended with mala fide and instituted with an ulterior motive.
The court then traversed a line of Supreme Court decisions on the distinction between a false promise of marriage and a breach of promise. From Pramod Suryabhan Pawar v. State of Maharashtra, (2019) 9 SCC 608, it drew the principle that a promise of marriage is “false” only where the maker had no intention of keeping it from the very inception, and the false promise had a direct bearing on the woman's consent. A subsequent breach, caused by circumstances or a change of mind, does not make the initial promise false.
The court referred to Mahesh Damu Khare v. State of Maharashtra, (2024) 11 SCC 398, for the proposition that where a physical relationship is maintained for a prolonged period knowingly by the woman, it cannot be said with certainty that the relationship was purely because of an alleged promise of marriage. A woman may have reasons personal to her, including liking for the male partner, for entering such a relationship.
From Samadhan v. State of Maharashtra, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 2528, the court quoted the Supreme Court's observation that converting every soured relationship into an offence of rape “trivialises the seriousness of the offence” and inflicts indelible stigma on the accused. The court also relied on Sonu @ Subhash Kumar v. State of Uttar Pradesh, (2021) 18 SCC 517, where the Supreme Court quashed an FIR arising from a one-and-a-half-year consensual relationship that ended when the accused expressed disinclination to marry — facts strikingly similar to the present case.
Further reliance was placed on Rajnish Singh @ Soni v. State of U.P., 2025 (4) SCC 197; Manish Yadav v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 363; Ravish Singh Rana v. State of Uttarakhand, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 1055; Prashant v. State of NCT of Delhi, (2025) 5 SCC 764; Pramod Kumar Navratna v. State of Chhattisgarh, 2026 SCC OnLine SC 154; Naim Ahamed v. State (NCT of Delhi), (2023) 15 SCC 385; Deepak Gulati v. State of Haryana, (2013) 7 SCC 675; Uday v. State of Karnataka, (2003) 4 SCC 46; Maheshwar Tigga v. State of Jharkhand, (2020) 10 SCC 108; Shiv Shanker v. State of Karnataka, (2019) 18 SCC 204; Dileep Singh v. State of Bihar, (2005) 1 SCC 88; Nitin B. Nikhare v. State of Maharashtra (SLP (Crl.) No. 1889/2024, decided 21 January 2025); and Amal Bhagwan Nehul v. State of Maharashtra (SLP (Crl.) No. 10044/2024, decided 26 May 2025).
From this body of precedent, the court distilled that consent to a physical relationship is vitiated by a misconception of fact only where the false promise had a direct nexus with the consent, and where it is established that the accused held no intention of marriage from the very beginning. Misconception of fact, for this purpose, must be proximate in time to the act and cannot be spread over a prolonged period during which the relationship was sustained voluntarily.
How the Court Reasoned on the Facts
Justice Vivek Kumar Singh applied this framework to the facts in detail. The complainant's own Section 164 Cr.P.C. statement recorded physical relations on approximately 30 to 40 occasions across one and a half years. She did not lodge any complaint after the first or any subsequent alleged act. She visited hotels and the under-construction building voluntarily. There was no allegation that the applicant had forcibly taken her to any of those places or used deceit to procure her presence.
The court noted that the complainant was above 21 years of age when the FIR was lodged on 2 March 2024 (her date of birth being 17 January 2003, not disputed in the counter affidavit). She was a working woman, a fact also not denied. The court held she was “mature and intelligent enough to understand the consequences of the moral and immoral acts for which she consented during her relationship.”
Crucially, the complainant had not alleged that the applicant had no intention to marry her from the very beginning. In the court's assessment, the basic ingredient of a false promise — bad faith at inception — was absent. The FIR was filed only after the complainant learnt of the applicant's impending marriage to another woman. The court found it probable that, as with the facts in Prashant, the applicant's marriage to the other woman prompted the complaint.
The court also observed that the other charges under Sections 504 and 506 IPC (insult and criminal intimidation) were not supported by any material particulars in the record.
On the broader concern, the court added that an adult who voluntarily enters a romantic relationship must recognise that not every such relationship will result in marriage, and that the law cannot be invoked to criminalise the mere failure of a relationship. Courts are required to exercise caution where the material reflects a consensual relationship between adults and the complaint appears rooted in personal grievance rather than commission of a criminal offence.
The court found the case to fall within categories (1), (5), and (7) of the Bhajan Lal guidelines: the allegations, even accepted in their entirety, do not constitute a prima facie offence; the allegations are inherently improbable on the material; and the proceedings appear to have been initiated with an ulterior motive. Continuing them, the court held, would be a “futility and gross misuse of criminal jurisdiction.”
Order
By order dated 18 June 2026, Justice Vivek Kumar Singh allowed Application U/S 528 BNSS No. 16851 of 2025 and quashed Chargesheet No. 65 of 2024 dated 5 April 2024, the cognizance order dated 16 October 2024, and the entirety of Criminal Case No. 108112 of 2024 (State v. Lokendra Singh and others) arising out of Case Crime No. 57 of 2024 under Sections 376, 504, and 506 IPC, Police Station Gujaini, District Kanpur Nagar, pending before the Additional Civil Judge (Senior Division), Court No. 5, Kanpur Nagar.