Recently, while quashing the criminal proceedings against a man who was accused of rape by a woman after he refused to marry her, the single-headed bench of Justice Sharad Kumar Sharma of the Uttarakhand High Court has said that, women these days are misusing anti-rape law as weapon against male partners.

Further, the bench remarked that women are misusing Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against their male counterparts for various reasons, including divorce.

In the said matter, the woman had filed a complaint on June 30, 2020, stating that the accused was having consensual sex with her since 2005. She said the two had promised each other that they would get married as soon as either of them gets a job.

But the accused later married another woman and their relationship continued thereafter, it was claimed.

“The element of consent automatically gets involved when the complainant had voluntarily continued their relationship even after knowing that the accused was already married.”

The court said that the veracity of an assurance of marriage has to be examined in the initial stage when entering a relationship by mutual consent and not in the later stage.

The high court said that the initial stage cannot be considered when the relationship has lasted for 15 years and even continued after the marriage of the accused.