Mahesh Damu Khare v. State of Maharashtra

2024 INSC 897 · [2024] 11 SCR 886

Court: Supreme Court of India (Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction)
Case: Criminal Appeal No. 4882 of 2024 (@ SLP (Crl.) No. 4326 of 2018)
Decided: 26 November 2024
Bench: B.V. Nagarathna, Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh (judgment by Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh, J.)
Citation: 2024 INSC 897
Equivalent citations: [2024] 11 SCR 886 (as printed in the judgment)
Provisions: IPC s. 375 (rape; Secondly: without her consent) = BNS s. 63(ii)
IPC s. 90 (consent given under fear or misconception) = BNS s. 28(a)
BNS s. 69 (sexual intercourse by deceitful means or by a promise to marry without any intention of fulfilling it, not amounting to rape; up to 10 years and fine; no IPC equivalent)
CrPC s. 482 (quashing of FIR)
IPC s. 420 (cheating)

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Headnote

Sensitive matter. Sexual-offence matter. The case history also mentions a complaint about a minor under the POCSO Act. The complainant, her children and the minor are not named in any extract; the extracts state only the law.

BNS s. 69 · IPC s. 90 (BNS s. 28) · Promise to marry and consent under misconception of fact · Long consensual relationship · Quashing of FIR

Held

In our view, if a man is accused of having sexual relationship by making a false promise of marriage and if he is to be held criminally liable, any such physical relationship must be traceable directly to the false promise made and not qualified by other circumstances or consideration. [...] Thus, unless it can be shown that the physical relationship was purely because of the promise of marriage, thereby having a direct nexus with the physical relationship without being influenced by any other consideration, it cannot be said that there was vitiation of consent under misconception of fact. [para 22]
It must also be clear that for a promise to be a false promise to amount to misconception of fact within the meaning of Section 90 of IPC, it must have been made from the very beginning with an intention to deceive the woman to persuade her to have a physical relationship. [para 23]
It may be also noted that there may be occasions where a promise to marry was made initially but for various reasons, a person may not be able to keep the promise to marry. If such promise is not made from the very beginning with the ulterior motive to deceive her, it cannot be said to be a false promise to attract the penal provisions of Section 375 IPC, punishable under Section 376 IPC. [para 24]
[...] does not indicate the intention at the initial stage itself to make the promise falsely to marry the complainant. Making an allegation of non-fulfilment of promise to marry without undue delay by the promissee would, on the other hand, be an indicator of a false promise being made from the initial stage. [para 25]
We, however, make it clear that our decision in this case and observations made are to be understood in the factual matrix before this Court. Every case must be decided on its own facts and circumstances, [...] every decision relating to human relationships must be based on the peculiar facts and circumstances obtaining in the particular case. [para 33]

Result

Consequently, the appeal is allowed and the impugned judgement and order dated 12.02.2018 passed by the Bombay High Court in Criminal Writ Petition (CRWP) No. 5190 of 2017 is set aside. Resultantly, the FIR being CR No. 302 of 2017 dated 15.08.2017 registered against the appellant with the Kharghar Police Station, Navi Mumbai under Sections 376, 420, 504 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code is quashed. [para 36]

Editorial note: subsequent treatment

Follows Pramod Suryabhan Pawar, Naim Ahamed, Deepak Gulati and Dhruvaram Sonar. Cited as (2024) 11 SCC 398 in Samadhan v. State of Maharashtra (24 November 2025).

The headnote consists of extracts from the Court's judgment, selected by The Daily Bench for convenience. The selection is not part of the judgment, is not a law report and should not be cited. It may contain errors; rely on the official judgment. Library reference TDB-LL BNS-69/05 is our own cataloguing label and is not a citation.