Supreme Court Quashes FIR Under Section 69 BNS Where Relationship Was Consensual and Refusal to Marry Was Due to Mother's Objection

A bench of Justices Pardiwala and Vinod Chandran quashed a false-promise-of-marriage FIR, holding that a mother's objection explaining the refusal negates deceitful intent under Section 69 BNS.

The Supreme Court on 7 September 2026 quashed an FIR registered at Sayajiganh Police Station, Vadodara City, Gujarat, against Kunal Rameshbhai Kalyani under Section 69 of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita. The bench of Justice J. B. Pardiwala and Justice K. Vinod Chandran found that the complainant's own account described a consensual relationship that grew out of a digital-platform friendship, and that the appellant's refusal to marry was attributed to his mother's opposition — a circumstance that is incompatible with a finding of deceitful intent from the outset. The Gujarat High Court had declined to quash the FIR, prompting the appellant to approach the Supreme Court by way of Special Leave Petition (Crl.) No. 11526 of 2026, in which leave was granted and the appeal allowed.

How the Dispute Reached the Court

The complainant alleged that the appellant, under the pretext of a promise to marry, induced her into physical relations and later resiled from that promise on the ground that his mother was not agreeable to the marriage. An FIR bearing No. 11196030250292 was registered on 20.05.2025 at Sayajiganh Police Station, Vadodara City, Gujarat, invoking Section 69 BNS.

Section 69 BNS carves out a distinct offence for sexual intercourse obtained through “deceitful means or by making a promise to marry to a woman without any intention of fulfilling the same.” This provision was Parliament's response to a perceived gap in the earlier framework under the Indian Penal Code, where false-promise cases were prosecuted under Section 375 read with Section 90 IPC.

The appellant moved the Gujarat High Court for quashing the FIR. The High Court declined, specifically relying on the Supreme Court's judgment in Deepak Gulati v. State of Haryana, (2013) 7 SCC 675. The appellant thereupon filed the Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court.

What the FIR Actually Said

The Court extracted and examined the FIR itself. On the facts stated in the complaint, the appellant and complainant first came into contact through a digital platform. A friendship developed and later became a love affair. When they met for the first time in person, the appellant communicated his desire to marry the complainant. The complainant then allowed sexual intercourse. The first instance of intercourse was on 12.02.2024. In April 2024, the complainant is stated to have stayed in a hotel with the appellant for two days.

The Court read the complaint carefully on a specific point: the complainant's own statement on the first occasion of intercourse was that she “succumbed to the appellant's entreaties” without specifically stating that physical relations were permitted only on the promise to marry. This reading of the complaint's own language was central to what followed.

The Section 69 BNS Standard and the Deepak Gulati Framework

The Court addressed the legal standard under both the earlier IPC framework and the new BNS provision. Under the IPC, the false-promise-of-marriage prosecution required a court to find that consent, if present, was vitiated because the victim was led to believe a marriage promise would be kept, and that the promisor never intended to honour it from the very beginning.

Deepak Gulati v. State of Haryana had articulated this requirement clearly: there must be adequate evidence showing that at the initial stage itself, the accused had no intention of keeping the promise. A failure to keep a promise regarding a future uncertain date, for reasons not clearly established in evidence, does not by itself amount to a misconception of fact. The Court in that case held that Section 90 IPC cannot fasten criminal liability unless the court is satisfied that the accused never really intended to marry from the outset.

The Court in the present case analysed whether Section 69 BNS changes this position. It found that the phrase “deceitful means or by making a promise to marry to a woman without any intention of fulfilling the same” in Section 69 BNS imports the same rigour. The word “deceitful” still requires that the promise was given with an intention of never being fulfilled. What BNS did was separate this conduct from the graver offence of rape while providing a distinct penalty for deceptive conduct. The substantive threshold for what counts as deceit, however, remains the same.

Why the Facts Did Not Meet the Threshold

Applying that standard, the Court found no material to support a finding of deceitful conduct on the appellant's part.

First, the relationship as described in the complaint was consensual from the outset. A friendship grew into a love affair. The complainant succumbed to the appellant's entreaties at the first meeting — with the complaint itself not clearly linking that consent to a specific promise of marriage made as a precondition.

Second, and more significantly, the reason given in the very complaint for the appellant's refusal to marry was that his mother did not permit it. The Court held that this explanation, appearing in the complainant's own account, indicates that whatever promise existed was made with good intention. A refusal driven by parental opposition is precisely the kind of “unavoidable circumstance” that the Deepak Gulati framework recognised as inconsistent with deceitful intent from the beginning.

Third, on the question of deceitful means more broadly, the Court found that the appellant's communication of a desire to marry on the first meeting did not, by itself, constitute deceit. Mere communication of a matrimonial desire is not the same as deploying deceitful means to induce consent.

The High Court's Error

The Gujarat High Court had relied on Deepak Gulati when declining to quash, but the Supreme Court's examination of the FIR led it to the opposite conclusion. The High Court had read the same precedent but had not applied its specific requirement — that the accused must have harboured no intention to marry from the very beginning — to the facts disclosed in the FIR itself. The Supreme Court found no reason to allow the proceedings to continue once that requirement was examined against the complaint's own narration.

Order

The Court quashed FIR No. 11196030250292 dated 20.05.2025 registered at Sayajiganh Police Station, Vadodara City, Gujarat. The criminal appeal was allowed. All pending applications, if any, were rejected. The order was passed on 7 September 2026.