A newly introduced offense under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which criminalises intercourse by fraudulent means, including the promise of marriage, punishes fraud, deceit and exploitation, but not disappointment, failed affection or relationship breakdown, the Karnataka High Court said on Wednesday.
“Provision § 69 (BNS) criminalizes sexual intercourse by using deceptive means, including the promise of marriage, without the intention to fulfill it. The provision, although newly introduced, cannot be interpreted in such a way as to become a tool for the retroactive criminalization of consensual relationships based on the mere recitation of the promise,” the court said.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna made these observations while quashing a criminal case filed against a lawyer by a woman who accused him of having a sexual relationship with her on the basis of a promise of marriage and later breaking the promise.
The woman complained that the lawyer she approached in 2020 in a check dishonor case became close to her later in 2022 and allegedly had a physical relationship with her in 2023 with the promise of marriage but did not follow through. The complaint was filed in December 2024.
However, the accused lawyer denied having a physical relationship with her or promising marriage, claiming that the complaint was fabricated and the complainant was in the habit of trapping men for such acts and registering criminal cases against them.
Based on documents about the applicant’s past and current relationship and other complaints she filed, the court said “the complaint bears a strong imprint of manipulation and an attempt to turn private disagreements into public prosecutions.”
“… it is difficult to understand, let alone accept, how the applicant could credibly claim that she consented to a sexual relationship based on the promise of marriage when she appears to have been in a permanent marital relationship or at least in a permanent domestic partnership and is also the mother of two children, one aged about 13 years and the other about four years old,” the court said.
The court found from the records that the applicant divorced her second husband in 2016, but the birth certificate of her child, who was born in 2020, lists her second husband as the father. The four-year-old also lives with his mother and father, the court said, relying on recent photographs of the family produced to him.
Published – 21 Jan 2026 20:30 IST
