The High Court of Karnataka has quashed two criminal cases of “rape and cheating” against a man by stating that the cases were registered on the complaint of a woman, who was in the habit of seeking relationship with men through social media and later registering case against them alleging having sex with her on false promise of marriage.
“If the trial of such cases is permitted to continue, then it would be putting a premium on the activities of the complainant woman and her effort to abuse the process of law over and over,” the court observed.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order while allowing a petition filed by one Girinath questioning the two separate complaints lodged against him by one Rajeshwari in Bengaluru and Davangere on the same set of charges.
The court also noted from the records that the complainant had entered into a similar consensual relationship with one Dhanush in 2013 and later lodged a criminal case, which ultimately ended in his acquittal in 2016 after she herself turned hostile.
From the contents of the complaints against the petitioner, the court noted that the petitioner and the complainant met each other through Facebook in 2013 and developed a live-in relationship, which continued till 2019.
As the complainant herself admitted having consensual sex with the petitioner till 2019, the court said, “Fading away of intimacy after six years of consensual intercourse cannot mean that it would become ingredients of Section 375 (rape) of Indian Penal Code” and continuation of proceedings against the petitioner would run foul of a plethora of judgements rendered by the apex court in such relationships.
After registering the first complaint against the petitioner in Bengaluru, the woman went to Davangere, the native of the petitioner, and lodged another complaint by claiming that he “raped and cheated” her again after registration of the first case.
The petitioner had alleged that complainant was in the habit of developing relationships with men in the guise of friendship and later blackmailing them by registering complaints.
