Supreme Court quashes rape case after noting woman was already married, sex was consensual

The Supreme Court on Wednesday quashed a rape case file by a married woman against a man with whom she was having an extra-marital relationship [XXXX vs State of Madhya Pradesh and anr]..A bench of Justices CT Ravikumar and Rajesh Bindal noted that it was a case of a mature woman having consented to the affair by betraying her husband and there was no promise by the accused to marry the complainant. "It is evident that there was no promise to marry initially ... It is not a case where the complainant was of an immature age who could not foresee her welfare and take right decision ... She was matured and intelligent enough to understand the consequences of the moral and immoral acts for which she consented during subsistence of her earlier marriage. In fact, it was a case of betraying her husband," the Court explained..The observations came while disposing of an appeal against a Madhya Pradesh High Court order that had refused to set aside the criminal proceedings against the man.The complainant-woman was ten years' older than the accused.Their relationship developed as the woman began living separately from her then husband, but a first information report (FIR) was registered the day he refused to marry her.The top court observed that the relationship was clearly consensual."Not only the consent of the complainant which is clearly evident but also of the parents and daughter of the complainant as they were living in the same house, where allegedly the appellant and the complainant were having physical relations," the Court said. .The appeal was, therefore,allowed and the rape case quashed..Advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey appeared for the accused.Additional Advocate General Dhirendra Singh Parmar with advocates . Rajan Kumar Chourasia, Mrinal Gopal Elker, Santosh Narayan Singh, Mohd Faisal and Saurabh Singh appeared for the Madhya Pradesh government..[Read Judgment]