The Bombay High Court dismissed a case filed by a man who had promised to marry a woman but went back on his word citing astrological incompatibility. According to Justice Sandeep K Shinde, ‘It is apparent that the applicant (accused man) in the guise of astrological incompatibility of the horoscopes, avoided the promise (of marriage). Thus, I am convinced that the material on record suggests, it is a case of false promise to marry which apparently vitiates the complainant’s (woman’s) consent’.
The couple had been together since 2012, and the woman filed a complaint against him for refusing to marry her. The woman claimed in her complaint that the man ‘promised to marry her and then exploited her psychologically and emotionally to frequently get physical with her. They got physically intimate twice in October 2012, at the Hotel Cafeteria’. Later, the two even traveled together. The man, however asked the woman to terminate her pregnancy when she got pregnant and promised to marry her after two years.
When the man refused to marry her and her own family threw her out, she filed a complaint against him in December 2012, after which his family members agreed to their marriage. As a result of their promise, the woman retracted her complaint in January 2013. Two weeks later, the man again backed out, claiming he was not mentally prepared to marry at the age of 24. As a member of a lower-middle-class family, he said his family was not financially secure.
In response, the woman filed an FIR against the man for rape and cheating. Dindoshi sessions court rejected the man’s plea for discharge from the case. The Bombay High Court allowed him to file a revision. However, Justice Shinde of the Bombay High Court observed that there was sufficient evidence to suggest that the man did not intend to fulfill his promise to marry the woman.
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‘Principally, I am of the opinion that the applicant (man) convinced the complainant (woman) to withdraw her first complaint in December 2012 by promising to marry her’. Justice Shinde added, ‘The facts emerging from the material/documents on the record, taken at their face value, disclose the existence of all elements constituting an alleged offence under Section 376 of the IPC. Therefore, this application deserves no consideration. It is rejected’.
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