Does a Consent Obtained through False Promise amounts to Rape? Special Reference to G. Achyut Kumar v. State of Orissa
Volume III, Issue VI, 2020
Rape is one of the greatest offences in criminal law. Usually, rape is committed when there is forceful sexual intercourse without the consent of the other party. But what is the consent is obtain by promising the other party about marriage and then not fulfilling afterwards. It is argued that such consent may come under the ambit of Section 90, which talks about consent obtained through misconception of facts is no consent at all. Several High Courts and the apex court have given judgment which swings both ways. On one hand the even though the consent was obtained under false promise it was not considered to be a rape. This is because of various factors surrounding the facts, like consent was obtain but by an adult, definition of the word ‘Fact’ does not include contingent circumstances, sometimes the consent is obtained because of love and not because of a promise. On the other hand if facts of the case indicate that the intention of the accused was fiction from its inception, acts making the fulfilment of promise near impossible and other such factors is sufficient to prove that false promise of marriage is rape and thus there is no straight jacket formula to judge such types of cases. The paper covers a general overview of the topic through various case laws.w
DOI: http://doi.one/10.1732/IJLMH.25368