Calling failed relationship rape trivialises offence: SC

The Supreme Court on Monday cautioned that branding every failed or acrimonious relationship as rape trivialises the gravity of the crime and inflicts “indelible stigma and grave injustice” upon the accused. Condemning the “misuse of the criminal justice machinery” in such instances, the court stressed that the law must be invoked only where genuine sexual violence or lack of free consent is evident.

- Utkarsh Anand

A bench of justices BV Nagarathna and R Mahadevan made the remarks while quashing an FIR and charge sheet accusing a Maharashtra-based lawyer of rape and criminal intimidation. The woman who filed the complaint had initially approached the advocate for legal assistance in a maintenance case and later entered a long-term intimate relationship with him.

“The offence of rape, being of the gravest kind, must be invoked only in cases where there exists genuine sexual violence, coercion, or absence of free consent...To convert every sour relationship into an offence of rape not only trivialises the seriousness of the offence but also inflicts upon the accused indelible stigma and grave injustice. Such misuse of the criminal justice machinery... is a matter of profound concern and calls for condemnation,” it held.