New Delhi: The Supreme Court has quashed an FIR registered under Section 69 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita against a man accused of entering into physical relations with a woman on the pretext of a promise to marry, holding that the relationship was consensual and that no deceitful conduct could be attributed to him merely because he later did not marry her owing to his mother's opposition.
A Bench comprising Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice K. Vinod Chandran was hearing an appeal against a Gujarat High Court judgment which had refused to quash an FIR registered at Sayajiganh Police Station, Vadodara City, dated 20.05.2025, on a complaint alleging that the appellant had established physical relations with the complainant under the pretext of a promise to marry and had later resiled from the promise after his mother objected to the match.
The High Court, while declining to quash the FIR, had relied on this Court's earlier decision in Deepak Gulati v. State of Haryana, which held that a mere failure to keep a promise of marriage made for an uncertain future date does not by itself amount to a misconception of fact, and that criminal liability can be fastened only where it is shown that the accused never intended, from the very beginning, to marry the complainant.
The Court explained that while such conduct was earlier prosecuted under Section 375 read with Section 90 of the IPC, which required proof that consent was tainted by a promise the accused never intended to keep, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita has now introduced Section 69 as a separate, standalone offence carving out fraudulent and deceitful conduct of this nature from the graver offence of rape, while retaining the same requirement of an intention, at the time the promise was made, never to fulfil it.
Examining the FIR as extracted by the High Court, the Court noted that the appellant and the complainant had come into contact through a digital platform, developed a friendship that turned into a relationship, and that the appellant had communicated his desire to marry her at their first physical meeting, following which she consented to sexual intercourse on 12.02.2024. The two are also stated to have stayed together in a hotel for two days in April 2024.
Finding nothing in the complaint to indicate deceitful conduct, the Court observed that “we do not find anything to find a deceitful conduct, of, the appellant having induced the complainant into sexual intercourse, which she succumbed to only on the promise to marry.”
The Court further held that the mere communication of a desire to marry did not, by itself, establish that the appellant had employed any deceitful means, and that the complainant's own case, that the appellant later declined to marry her because his mother did not permit it, in fact indicated that the promise, if made, was made with good intention.
Finding no reason to allow continuation of the proceedings, the Court quashed FIR No.11196030250292 dated 20.05.2025, registered at Sayajiganh Police Station, Vadodara City, Gujarat, and allowed the appeal, with leave having been granted and pending applications rejected.
Case Title: Kunal Rameshbhai Kalyani vs. The State of Gujarat & Anr., Criminal Appeal @ Special Leave Petition (Crl.) No.11526 of 2026 (2026 INSC 987).
