A man who falsely proposes marriage to a woman as a means of eliciting consent for sex can be held for rape, says a court in the Indian capital

While sentencing a man to jail for sexually exploiting his neighbour, a Delhi court has held that entering into a sexual relationship with a woman after making her a false promise of marriage amounts to rape. The judgment is bound to have widespread ramifications for both women's rights and criminal justice as the issue involves the question of consent by adults and also whether such an offence is not rape but a fraud perpetrated by one party against the other.

"The so-called consent under a false promise of marriage is no consent. Accordingly, the consent obtained in establishing a physical relationship like husband and wife under false promise to marry is no consent as per law," additional sessions judge Mahavir Singhal wrote in his judgment.

Enumerating the differences between will and consent, the court ruled that a man receiving consent to sexual relations under false pretext does not amount to legal or valid consent and saving him from being accused and punished for rape.
Even if the woman is assumed to be a willing participant in their physical union, the fact that the man had no intention of marrying her would make it an instance where consent was given under a misconception, nullifying the efficacy of approval.

In the case under judgment, the accused Chote Lal, a father of six, eloped with his neighbour from Delhi, on September 2, 2004, and took her to various cities including Jaipur and Chandigarh.

According to the victim, the two had sex after Lal assured the woman that they would get married soon. Meanwhile, the woman's father filed a missing person's report with the local police.

On the basis of this, the couple were detained by the police on March 3, 2005, when they returned to Delhi. Chote Lal was charged with abduction and rape.

While the court acquitted the accused of the abduction charge, after noting that the woman had eloped with him of her own free will, it did find him guilty of raping her. The girl was under the misconception that Lal would marry her, though he had no such intention despite having made promises in this regard, the court said while awarding him the sentence.

Source: www.ndtv.com, January 25, 2008
              The Asian Age, January 26, 2008