It is definitely in the fitness of things that, while taking a very pragmatic approach, the Orissa High Court, in a most learned, laudable, landmark, logical, and latest judgment titled Manoj Kumar Munda vs State of Odisha & Anr in CRLMC No.4485 of 2024 and cited in 2025 LiveLaw (Ori) 30, that was heard on 04.02.2025 and finally pronounced on 14.02.2025, has commendably, courageously, and clearly quashed rape charges against a man who was accused of having repeated sex with a woman/complainant over about nine years on a false promise of marriage.
It must be noted that the Single Judge Bench comprising Hon’ble Dr. Justice Sanjeeb Kumar Panigrahi minced no words to state in no uncertain terms that non-culmination of the relationship into marriage may be a source of personal grievance but not a crime. It merits mentioning that the Bench unequivocally stated, “The law does not extend its protection to every broken promise, nor does it impose criminality upon every failed relationship. The Petitioner and the prosecutrix entered into a relationship in 2012, when both were competent, consenting adults, capable of making their own choices, exercising their own will, and shaping their own futures. That the relationship did not culminate in marriage may be a source of personal grievance, but the failure of love is not a crime, nor does the law transform disappointment into deception.”
We thus see clearly that the Bench exercised its jurisdiction under Section 482 CrPC and quashed the criminal proceedings pending against the petitioner. Very rightly so!
It is high time lawmakers amend rape laws. If a woman has sex with a man without force being used, it should not be termed rape. Why should a woman agree to have sex with a man without marriage, only on the promise of marriage, and surrender her body for 9 to 10 years, as we see in this leading case, and later cry rape? This merits prompt changes by lawmakers so that a woman, whether married or unmarried, refrains from having sex with a man on any pretext without marriage being consummated. This would act as a strong deterrent and prevent the misuse of rape laws against men by women who engage in sexual relationships for years and later claim rape, citing a broken promise of marriage as the excuse.
By all accounts, there is no gainsaying that the sooner this is done, the better it will be! This will usher in morality and make women think twice before engaging in unfettered sexual relationships without marriage. It will go a long way in curbing the regressive practice of women surrendering their bodies on the pretext of marriage for years and later terming it as rape when the relationship turns sour. It certainly brooks no further delay.
At the very outset, this brief, brilliant, bold, and balanced judgment authored by the Single Judge Bench comprising Hon’ble Dr. Justice Sanjeeb Kumar Panigrahi sets the ball in motion by first and foremost putting forth in para 1 that, “In this Criminal Miscellaneous Petition, the Petitioner is challenging the initiation of criminal proceedings in Bolangir Town PS Case No. 191 of 2021 (corresponding to OR Case No. 426 of 2021) registered in the Court of the learned SDJM, Bolangir. The charges include offenses under Sections 376(2)(a), 376(2)(i), 376(2)(n), 294, 506, and 34 of the IPC.”
As things stand, the Bench states in para 2: “Opp. Party No. 2 (the prosecutrix) filed a written complaint alleging that she met the Petitioner in 2012 while both were pursuing a computer course in Sambalpur. They developed a close friendship that eventually led the Petitioner to fall in love with her. Admittedly, their families were aware of their relationship.”
Do note, the Bench elaborates in para 7 that, “In the civil suit, she claimed that, on 03.02.2021, she and the Petitioner had solemnized their marriage at Samaleswari Temple, Sambalpur, and exchanged garlands, vermilion, and mangalsutra. She also alleged that they applied for marriage registration under the Special Marriage Act, but the Petitioner failed to appear for the registration on 18.03.2021.”
The Bench specifies in para 18: “This case involves a long-term consensual relationship between the Petitioner and the prosecutrix, which began in 2012 and lasted nearly nine years. The prosecutrix claims that the Petitioner engaged in a physical relationship with her based on a false promise of marriage. However, in a civil case, she later stated that she was already married to him. This contradiction, along with the lack of evidence of coercion or deception at the start of the relationship, is central to the dispute. The key legal question is whether the Petitioner’s failure to marry the prosecutrix invalidates her consent under Section 375 IPC or if this is simply a failed personal relationship that does not amount to a criminal offense.”
The Bench observes in para 25: “Upon careful perusal of the provisions outlined, the submissions made, and the case records, one incontrovertible truth emerges: the fulcrum upon which the adjudication of this case rests is ‘consent.’ In the jurisprudence of sexual offenses, the absence or presence of consent is not merely a factual consideration but the very essence of criminal culpability. The law mandates that the prosecution must establish, beyond reasonable doubt, that consent was either absent or vitiated by coercion, deception, or incapacity. Thus, in the final analysis, the outcome of this case shall turn solely on this cardinal question: was there free, voluntary, and unequivocal consent?”
Do note further, the Bench also observes in para 32 that, “Marriage, in a patriarchal society, has been reduced to a mere performative act, reinforcing the notion that female sexuality must be bound to male commitment. It is a legal construct, a deliberate compact between two individuals who elect to bind their futures together under the sanction of law. It is not the inexorable destination of passion, nor the predetermined consequence of intimacy. To conflate the two is to imprison human relationships within archaic expectations, to deny individuals, especially women, their right to autonomy, to choice, to the pursuit of desire unshackled by social decree.”
Truth be told, the Bench then observes in para 33 that, “Marriage is a choice, not inevitability. It is a legal recognition, not a moral recompense for physical union. It is an agreement, not atonement. To treat it otherwise is to strip individuals of their right to define their relationships on their own terms, to reduce love to a binding transaction, and to transform desire into a liability.”
Further, the Bench states in para 34 that, “Feminist philosophy has long waged battle against the tyranny of expectation, the insidious notion that a woman’s sexual agency is valid only when tethered to marriage. Simone de Beauvoir, a renowned French existentialist philosopher, feminist theorist, and writer, in her seminal work The Second Sex (de Beauvoir, S. (2015). The Second Sex, Vintage Classics), unmasked the historical subjugation embedded in this expectation:
‘The destiny that society traditionally offers women is marriage. Even today, most women are, were, or plan to be married, or they suffer from not being so. Marriage is the reference by which the single woman is defined, whether she is frustrated by, disgusted at, or even indifferent to this institution.’ (The Second Sex, p. 502).”
Most brilliantly, the Bench underscores in para 35, holding that, “It is this fiction of destiny that the law must resist. The presumption that a woman engages in intimacy only as a prelude to marriage, that her consent to one act is but a silent pledge to another, is a vestige of patriarchal thought, not a principle of justice. The law cannot lend itself to such a perversion of choice, where failed relationships become grounds for legal redress, and disappointment is cloaked in the language of deception.”
More to the point, the Bench further holds in para 36, stating that, “The legal system, by criminalizing sex under a ‘false promise of marriage,’ upholds this performative construct, one that assumes that women engage in sexual relationships only as a prelude to matrimony, rather than as autonomous agents of their own desires.”
Most remarkably, the Bench propounds in para 37, observing that, “In its pursuit of justice, the law must not become an instrument of moral policing. It must acknowledge that sexual agency is not a promise, nor is it a contract that mandates a predetermined outcome. To assume otherwise is to deny women the full measure of their autonomy, desire, and choice, reducing them to mere bearers of honour rather than individuals possessing an intrinsic right to their own bodies and decisions.”
Quite significantly, the Bench postulates in para 38, expounding that, “Society, for far too long, has treated sex as a transaction, where the woman’s participation is conditioned upon the promise of marriage, and her agency is recognized only insofar as it aligns with this expectation. But the law must not succumb to such anachronistic notions. The ability of a woman to engage in intimacy on her own terms, free from coercion, from expectation, and from the weight of archaic social contracts, must be protected, not punished.”
Be it noted, the Bench observes in para 39 that, “It is in this light that the automatic criminalization of failed relationships under the guise of ‘false promise of marriage’ must be scrutinized. The assumption that every physical relationship between a man and a woman carries the implicit condition of matrimony is not a principle of law but a vestige of control. It is a proposition that denies women the very agency the law purports to protect.”
It would be instructive to note that the Bench remarks in para 40 that, “The law must be a shield, not a shackle. It must recognize that sexual autonomy is a right, not a bargain, and that the exercise of this right is not a betrayal of virtue, nor an invitation for legal persecution. If the law is to serve justice, it must evolve, not in deference to tradition, but in allegiance to the fundamental truth that a woman’s body, her choices, and her future are hers alone to define.”
It is also worth noting that the Bench observes in para 41 that, “Yet, the realities of society cannot be ignored, nor can the law afford to be blind to the conditions in which it operates. In the vast expanse of this nation, there exist women reared in conservatism, sheltered from the world, their choices shaped not by unfettered will but by the narrow confines of tradition. For them, consent may not always be an act of true volition, but rather a submission to circumstance, to pressure, to the unspoken weight of expectation.”
It merits noting that the Bench comments in para 42 that, “Thus, this reasoning must not be wielded as a sword where it was meant to be a shield. It must not become a tool of exploitation, allowing men to feign love, deceive the trusting, and abandon them to dishonor. The law must tread with vigilance and make sure that principle does not become a pretext for abuse.”
Most significantly, the Bench encapsulates in para 43 what constitutes the cornerstone of this notable judgment, postulating that, “The intervention of the court in this particular case was imperative to shield the criminal justice system from being wielded as an instrument of vengeance for the collapse of a personal relationship. The pivotal question turned upon the consent of the prosecutrix and whether it had been tainted by fraud or coercion. The inconsistencies in her narrative, where she charged the petitioner with rape on the pretext of a false promise of marriage in the FIR while in the civil proceeding she asserted that she was already his legally wedded wife, cast a shadow upon the veracity of her allegations. The fact that the relationship lasted nearly nine years clearly showed that it was voluntary, making the invocation of Section 376 of the IPC questionable. Quashing the criminal proceedings is necessary to protect the integrity of the law and prevent it from being used to litigate personal disappointments or moral conflicts. The justice system is meant to address genuine crimes, not to serve as a battleground for failed relationships.”
For clarity, the Bench clarifies in para 44, holding that, “Accordingly, the holding in this case is confined to its own facts, and the judgment must not be read as a universal license. Each case must be weighed on its own merits, with the Court ever mindful that justice, to be just, must be both principled and compassionate.”
Most forthrightly, the Bench mandates in para 45, directing that, “In light of the legal precedents, the concept of consent, and the principles of sexual autonomy, this Court finds that the continuation of criminal proceedings against the Petitioner would constitute an abuse of process. The allegations, even if taken at face value, do not disclose the commission of a cognizable offense. Therefore, invoking the extraordinary jurisdiction under Section 482 Cr.P.C., this Court deems it just and proper to quash the impugned proceedings.”
Finally, the Bench concludes by holding in para 46 that, “Accordingly, this Criminal Miscellaneous Petition is allowed, and the impugned proceedings are hereby quashed.”
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