Woman Willingly Staying With Man Can't File Rape Case If Relationship 'Turns Sour', Says Supreme Court

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a woman who was in a relationship with a man and willingly stayed with him could not later file a rape case if the relationship turned sour. With the observation, the Bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and Vikram Nath granted anticipatory bail to one Ansaar Mohammad, who was accused of rape, unnatural offences, and criminal intimidation, according to reports.

“The complainant has willingly been staying with the appellant and had the relationship. Therefore, now if the relationship is not working out, the same cannot be a ground for lodging an FIR for the offence under Section 376(2)(n) IPC,” the order said, a report by the Bar and Bench stated.

The Court granted the appeal and set aside the Rajasthan High Court’s order denying the appellant pre-arrest bail. “The appellant is ordered to be released on bail to the satisfaction of the competent authority,” the Bench noted.

Mohammad had petitioned the Supreme Court after the Rajasthan High Court denied his application for anticipatory bail under Section 438 of the Indian Penal Code (CrPC).

The Rajasthan High Court in its May 19 order had refused to grant pre-arrest bail and said: “It is an admitted position that petitioner had made the relation with complainant by promising to marry her and due to their relation, one female child was born. So, looking to the gravity of offence, I do not consider it a fit case to enlarge the petitioners on anticipatory bail. Hence, the anticipatory bail application is dismissed.”

The apex court noted that the complainant admitted to being in a relationship with the appellant for four years and that she was 21 years old when the relationship began.

In light of this, the Court granted anticipatory bail to the appellant.

The Bench clarified, however, that the observations in the order are only for the purpose of deciding the anticipatory arrest bail application, and that the investigation should proceed unaffected by the observations in the order.

Advocate Arjun Singh Bhati represented the appellant, while Advocates Himanshu Sharma, Aditi Sharma, Seeta Ram Sharma, Ram Niwas Sharma, Vinay Kumar, Sandeep Singh, and Saurav Arora represented the complainant.

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