The High Court · 2025
Case Details
IN THE HIGH COURT OF ORISSA AT CUTTACK CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Application under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, read with Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarika Suraksha Sanhita, 2023. -------------- Bikash Behura ..…. Petitioner -versus- 1. State of Odisha 2. The Victim …… Opp. Parties -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For Petitioner : Mr. A.A. Mishra, Advocate For Opp. Parties : Ms. Sarita Moharana, A.S.C. (for O.P. No.1) Mr. Panchanan Panigrahi, Advocate (for O.P. No.2) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CORAM: HON’BLE MISS JUSTICE SAVITRI RATHO JUDGMENT 2nd September 2025 Savitri Ratho, J. This CRLMC has been filed with the following prayer:- “The Petitioner therefore most humbly prays that this Hon’ble Court be graciously pleased to allow this application and be pleased to quash the impugned FIR vide Annexure-1 and the impugned CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Page 1 of 23 proceeding registered on the basis of such FIR vide Sukinda C.T. No. 268 of 2024 pending on the files of the Court of learned GN-Cum-JMFC, corresponding to Sukinda P.S. Case No. 138/2024; And pass such other order/orders as this Hon’ble Court deems fit and proper in the facts and circumstance of the case; And for this act of kindness the Petitioner shall as in duty bound ever pray.” PROSECUTION CASE 2. On 19.04.2024, the victim submitted a written report in the Sukinda Police Station leading to registration of Sukinda P.S. Case No.138 of 2024 under Sections 493 and 376(2)(n) of the Indian Penal Code (hereinafter referred to as “the IPC”) against the petitioner. 3.
Facts
The victim had alleged in the FIR that she was aged more than 18 years and was in love with the petitioner since the last one and half years. He had kept physical relations with her and promised to marry her. When she refused to have physical relationship with his friends, he beat her and she escaped from the place. Thereafter their relationship returned to normal. One month back on 28.03.2024, he called her and they again had physical CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Page 2 of 23 relations and she returned home. The next day he did not receive her call. A few days thereafter, he blocked her number. When she called the petitioner through another number, the petitioner expressed that he doesn’t want to keep any further relation with her. Thereafter she was unable to contact him inspite of her best efforts. Copy of the FIR has been filed as Annexure-1. 4. Statement of the victim under Section 164 of Code of Criminal Procedure (hereinafter referred to as “the Cr.P.C.”) was recorded by the Magistrate on 25.04.2024. In the statement, the victim stated that her marriage had been fixed with the petitioner but due to a quarrel, he had blocked her number for which she had made false allegation against him about their relationship, and that she had a quarrel with the petitioner on 17.04.2024 and thereafter she had lodged the FIR making false allegations against the petitioner. 5. The statement of the victim recorded under Section 164 Cr.P.C. had been called for by this Court during hearing of ABLAPL No. 9070 of 2024 filed by the petitioner and was produced by the learned State Counsel. Its contents were referred to by the Court in its order dated 06.11.2024 vide which the petitioner had been directed to be released on bail on his surrender before the CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Page 3 of 23 learned Court below. Copy of the order dated 06.11.2024 passed in ABLPL No. 9070 of 2024 has been annexed as Annexure 2 to the CRLMC. Copy of the affidavit dated 24.04.2024 of the victim sworn before the Executive Magistrate has been annexed as Annexure-4 to the CRLMC. 6. On 21.01.2025, notice of this application had been issued to the victim and further proceedings in the case pending in the Court of the learned Gram Nyayalaya -cum- J.M.F.C., Sukinda in C.T. case No 268 of 2024 corresponding to Sukinda P.S. Case No. 138 of 2024, had been stayed. On a subsequent date, the copy of the statement of the victim recorded under Section 164 Cr.P.C. had
Legal Reasoning
been called for by this Court in a sealed cover and was produced. Mr. Panchanan Panigrahi, learned Counsel has entered appearance on behalf of the victim. The name of the victim is not being mentioned to protect her identity. SUBMISSIONS 7. I have heard Mr. A.A. Mishra, learned counsel for the petitioner, Ms. Sarita Moharana, Additional Standing Counsel and Mr. Panchanan Panigrahi, learned counsel for the informant. I have perused the written note of submission filed by the learned counsel for the petitioner. I have perused the FIR and the statement of the CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Page 4 of 23 victim recorded under Section 164 of the Cr.P.C. and the written note of submission filed by Mr. Mishra, learned counsel for the petitioner. 8. Mr. A.A Mishra, learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the petitioner and the informant were in a love relationship and the victim is a major. With consent of the family members of both the parties, the marriage between the informant (victim) and the petitioner had been fixed. But before the marriage could take place, they had a quarrel for which the victim lodged the F.I.R. making false allegations against him. But in the meantime, she realized her mistake and the matter has been resolved. The victim does not want to proceed in this case and has stated this in her statement recorded under Section 164 of the Cr.P.C. and she had submitted an affidavit to this effect before the I.O., copy of which has been annexed to this CRLMC as Annexure-4. She has got married in the meanwhile. The petitioner is also married. Pendency of this case will spoil their respective marital lives and as the victim does not want to proceed in the case, no useful purpose will be served if the proceedings are allowed to continue. 9. Mr. Mishra, learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted a written note relying on the decisions of the Supreme CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Page 5 of 23 Court in the cases of :- (i) Vineet Kumar and Others vs. State of Uttar Pradesh & Another reported in AIR 2017 SC 1884, (ii) Sumit vs. State of Uttar Pradesh & Another reported in 2024 AHC 98029, (iii) Manish Yadav vs. State of Uttar Pradesh & Another in Criminal Appeal No. 333 of 2025 (arising out of SLP (Crl.) No. 15882 of 2024) and (iv) Gian Singh vs. State of Punjab & Others reported in (2012) 10 SCC 303. 10. Ms. Sarita Moharana, learned Additional Standing Counsel for the State does not dispute the submissions of the learned counsel for the petitioner that after perusing the statement of the victim recorded under Section 164 of the Cr.P.C., this Court had allowed the application filed under Section 438 of the Cr.P.C. She also does not dispute that the victim is a major. She has also fairly stated that the Supreme Court has quashed proceedings where the accused and the victim-complainant being major were in a consensual physical relationship but subsequently their marriage did not materialize, holding that such allegations do not make out an offence under Section 376 of the I.P.C. CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Page 6 of 23 11. Mr. Panchanan Panigrahi, learned counsel for the opposite party no.2-victim submitted that the victim had made false allegations against the petitioner because of a misunderstanding and she has got married and is staying happily with her husband and she does not want to proceed against the petitioner for which the proceedings may be quashed. He has also submitted that if the proceedings continue and the victim is compelled to come to Court to adduce evidence, her marital life may be spoilt. STATUTORY PROVISIONS 12. Sections 375, 376 (2)(n) and Section 493 of the IPC are the relevant provisions for deciding this application and are extracted below :- “Section 375. Rape.—A man is said to commit “rape” if he— (a) penetrates his penis, to any extent, into the vagina, mouth, urethra or anus of a woman or makes her to do so with him or any other person; or (b) inserts, to any extent, any object or a part of the body, not being the penis, into the vagina, the urethra or anus of a woman or makes her to do so with him or any other person; or (c) manipulates any part of the body of a woman so as to cause penetration into the vagina, urethra, anus or any part of body of such woman CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Page 7 of 23 or makes her to do so with him or any other person; or (d) applies his mouth to the vagina, anus, urethra of a woman or makes her to do so with him or any other person, under the circumstances falling under any of the following seven descriptions:— First.—Against her will. Secondly.—Without her consent. Thirdly.—With her consent, when her consent has been obtained by putting her or any person in whom she is interested, in fear of death or of hurt. Fourthly.—With her consent, when the man knows that he is not her husband and that her consent is given because she believes that he is another man to whom she is or believes herself to be lawfully married. Fifthly.—With her consent when, at the time of giving such consent, by reason of unsoundness of mind or intoxication or the administration by him personally or through another of any stupefying or unwholesome substance, she is unable to understand the nature and consequences of that to which she gives consent. Sixthly.—With or without her consent, when she is under eighteen years of age. Seventhly.—When she is unable to communicate consent. CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Page 8 of 23 “Section 376. Punishment for rape.—(1) Whoever, except in the cases provided for in sub- section (2), commits rape, shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment of either description for a term which shall not be less than ten years, but which may extend to imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine]. (2) Whoever,— xxx (n) commits rape repeatedly on the same woman, shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than ten years, but which may extend to imprisonment for life, which shall mean imprisonment for the remainder of that person’s natural life, and shall also be liable to fine.” “Section – 493.Cohabitation caused by a man deceitfully inducing a belief of lawful marriage.—Every man who by deceit causes any woman who is not lawfully married to him to believe that she is lawfully married to him and to cohabit or have sexual intercourse with him in that belief, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.” JUDICIAL PRONOUNCEMENTS 13. In Mahesh Damu Khare vs. State Maharashtra : 2024 CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Page 9 of 23 INSC 897, the Supreme Court has held as follows:- “22. 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. A woman may have reasons to have physical relationship other than the promise of marriage made by the man, such as personal liking for the male partner without insisting upon formal marital ties. Thus, in a situation where physical relationship is maintained for a prolonged period knowingly by the woman, it cannot be said with certainty that the said physical relationship was purely because of the alleged promise made by the appellant to marry her. 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. 23. 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 CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Page 10 of 23 have been made from the very beginning with an intention to deceive the woman to persuade her to have a physical relationship. Therefore, if it is established that such consent was given under a misconception of fact, the said consent is vitiated and not a valid consent. In this regard we may refer to the case of “Deepak Gulati v. State of Haryana”: (2013) 7 SCC 675 , in which it was held as follows: “21. Consent may be express or implied, coerced or misguided, obtained willingly or through deceit. Consent is an act of reason, accompanied by deliberation, the mind weighing, as in a balance, the good and evil on each side. There is a clear distinction between rape and consensual sex and in a case like this, the court must very carefully examine whether the accused had actually wanted to marry the victim, or had mala fide motives, and had made a false promise to this effect only to satisfy his lust, as the latter falls within the ambit of cheating or deception. There is a distinction between the mere breach of a promise, and not fulfilling a the court must examine whether there was made, at an early stage a false promise of marriage by the accused; and whether the consent involved was given after wholly understanding the nature sexual consequences indulgence. There may be a case where the prosecutrix sexual intercourse on account of her love and false promise. Thus, agrees have and of to CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Page 11 of 23 passion for the accused, and not solely on account of misrepresentation made to her by the accused, or where an accused on account of circumstances which he could not have foreseen, or which were beyond his control, was unable to marry her, despite having every intention to do so. Such cases must be treated differently. An accused can be convicted for rape only if the court reaches a conclusion that the intention of the accused was mala fide, and that he had clandestine motives.” “24. Hence, it is evident that there must be adequate evidence to show that at the relevant time i.e. at the initial stage itself, the accused had no intention whatsoever, of keeping his promise to marry the victim. There may, of course, be circumstances, when a person having the best of intentions is unable to marry the victim owing to various unavoidable circumstances. The “failure to keep a promise made with respect to a future uncertain date, due to reasons that are not very clear from the evidence available, does not always amount to misconception of fact. In order to come within term “misconception of fact”, the fact must have an immediate relevance”. Section 90 IPC cannot be called into aid in such a situation, to pardon the act of a girl in entirety, and fasten criminal liability on the other, unless the court is assured of the fact that from the very beginning, the accused had never really intended to marry her.” (emphasis supplied) the meaning the of CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Page 12 of 23 24. 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. In Prithivirajan vs. State represented by Inspector of Police and another : 2025 SCC OnLine SC 696 (Criminal Appeal No.282 of 2025 @ SLP(Crl.) No.12663 of 2022 decided on 20.01.2025), the Supreme Court has held as follows:- “6. This Court has time and again reiterated that only because physical relations were established based on a promise to marry, it will not amount to rape. For the offence of rape to be attracted, the following conditions need to be satisfied: first, the accused promised to marry the prosecutrix solely to secure consent for sexual relations without having any intention of fulfilling said promise from the very beginning; second, that the prosecutrix gave her consent for sexual relations by being directly influenced by such false promise of marriage. [See: Pramod Suryabhan Pawar v. The State of Maharashtra and Ors. (2019) 9 CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Page 13 of 23 SCC 608; Mahesh Damu Khare vs. The State of Maharashtra and Ors. 2024 SCC OnLine SC 347] 7. The instant case is one of consensual relationship between the appellant and prosecutrix. Even otherwise, it does not appear from the record that the initial promise to marry allegedly made by the appellant was false to begin with. Perusal of FIR itself suggests that the alleged promise to marry could not be fulfilled by the appellant due to intervening circumstances. Consequently, the relationship ended because of which the present FIR came to be registered. Under these circumstances, letting the appellant face trial would be nothing short of an abuse of the process of the Court. This cannot be permitted.” In Jothiragawan vs. State represented by Inspector Police and another : 2025 SCC OnLine SC 628 : 2025 INSC 386), the Supreme Court has held as follows:- “12. On a reading of the statements made by the victim before the Police, both the First Information Statement and that recorded later on, we are not convinced that the sexual relationship admitted by both the parties was without the consent of the victim. That they were closely related and were in a relationship is admitted by CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Page 14 of 23 the victim. The allegation is also of threat and coercion against the victim, to have sexual intercourse with the accused, which even as per the victim’s statement was repeated thrice in the same manner, when she willingly accompanied the accused to a hotel room. The victim had also categorically stated that after the first incident and the second incident she was mentally upset, but that did not caution her from again accompanying the accused to hotel rooms. 13. Having heard both sides in this case, we have absolutely no doubt in our mind that the criminal proceedings initiated against the present appellant are nothing but an abuse of process of the court. This is precisely a case where the High Court should have interfered in exercise of its inherent and extraordinary powers under Section 482 of the Cr.P.C. These proceedings cannot go
Decision
on. Hence, we direct that the proceedings initiated at the instance of the complainant which are presently going on before Sessions Judge (Mahila Court), Erode in S.C. No. 49 of 2022, be hereby quashed.” In Manish Yadav vs. State of Uttar Pradesh & Another: 2025 INSC 151, the Supreme Court after referring to its earlier CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Page 15 of 23 decisions in Uday v. State of Karnataka: (2003) 4 SCC 46., Deepak Gulati v. State of Haryana : (2013) 7 SCC 675 and Deelip Singh v. State of Bihar: (2005) 1 SCC 88, has held as follows:- “22. In view of the above discussion, we are of the opinion that the present case appears to be one where a consensual physical relationship between two adults has turned sour due to certain intervening events. Hence, allowing the prosecution of the appellant for the offences mentioned above would tantamount to sheer abuse of the process of law and nothing else.” In the case of Gian Singh vs. State of Punjab & Others reported in (2012) 10 SCC 303, the larger Bench of the Supreme Court had been called upon to answer the reference whether the decisions in B.S. Joshi vs. State of Haryana (2003) 4 SCC 675; Nikhil Merchant vs. Central Bureau of Investigation and Another (2008) 9 SCC 677; and Manoj Sharma vs. State and Others (2008) 16 SCC 1, where the Supreme Court had indirectly permitted compounding of non-compoundable offences had been correctly decided as in the opinion of the Bench something which cannot be done directly cannot be done indirectly and non- compoundable offences cannot be permitted to be compounded by CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Page 16 of 23 the Court, whether directly or indirectly. The larger Bench answered the reference holding as follows : “57. The position that emerges from the above discussion can be summarised thus: the power of the High Court in quashing a criminal proceeding or FIR or complaint in exercise of its inherent jurisdiction is distinct and different from the power given to a criminal court for compounding the offences under Section 320 of the Code. Inherent power is of wide plenitude with no statutory limitation but it has to be exercised in accord with the guideline engrafted in such power viz; (i) to secure the ends of justice or (ii) to prevent abuse of the process of any Court. In what cases power to quash the criminal proceeding or complaint or F.I.R may be exercised where the offender and victim have settled their dispute would depend on the facts and circumstances of each case and no category can be prescribed. However, before exercise of such power, the High Court must have due regard to the nature and gravity of the crime. Heinous and serious offences of mental depravity or offences like murder, rape, dacoity, etc. cannot be fittingly quashed even though the victim or victim’s family and the offender have settled the dispute. Such offences are not private in nature and have serious impact CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Page 17 of 23 on society. Similarly, any compromise between the victim and offender in relation to the offences under special statutes like Prevention of Corruption Act or the offences committed by public servants while working in that capacity etc; cannot provide for any basis for quashing criminal proceedings involving such offences. But the criminal cases having overwhelmingly and pre-dominatingly civil flavour stand on different footing for the purposes of quashing, particularly the offences arising from commercial, financial, mercantile, civil, partnership or such like transactions or the offences arising out of matrimony relating to dowry, etc. or the family disputes where the wrong is basically private or personal in nature and the parties have resolved their entire dispute. In this category of cases, High Court may quash criminal proceedings if in its view, because of the compromise between the offender and victim, the possibility of conviction is remote and bleak and continuation of criminal case would put accused to great oppression and prejudice and extreme injustice would be caused to him by not quashing the criminal case despite full and complete settlement and compromise with the victim. In other words, the High Court must consider whether it would be unfair or contrary to the interest of justice to continue with the criminal CRLMC No. 55 of 2025 Page 18 of 23 proceeding or continuation of the criminal proceeding would tantamount to abuse of process of law despite settlement and compromise between the victim and wrongdoer and whether to secure the ends of justice, it is appropriate that criminal case is put to an end and if the answer to the above question(s) is in affirmative, the High Court shall be well within its jurisdiction to quash the criminal proceeding.” In Vineet Kumar and Others vs. State of Uttar Pradesh