IT exec who called off marriage over dowry demands to face rape charges

The first information report (FIR) in the case was registered at the Kondhawa police station on February 8, 2024, following a complaint lodged by the woman

MUMBAI: A 27-year-old information technology (IT) professional from Pune will face trial for raping his fiancée under the pretext of marriage and calling off the marriage over non-fulfilment of dowry demands, the Bombay high court ruled on Monday.

IT exec who called off marriage over dowry demands to face rape charges

“This is nothing but constructive cheating by the petitioner (the accused) and his parents,” the division bench of justices AS Gadkari and Neela Gokhale said while refusing to quash criminal proceedings against the accused.

The first information report (FIR) in the case was registered at the Kondhawa police station on February 8, 2024, following a complaint lodged by the woman. She said she and the accused got to know each other while working in the same company around two years ago, after which he proposed to marry her. While their families were discussing their marriage proposal, in December 2022, the accused took her to his home in Pune and had sex with her, purportedly against her wish. The act was repeated several times even as they got formally engaged in June 2023, the woman said in her complaint.

Later, the accused and his family insisted that the woman’s parents must bear the entire cost of the marriage; they also demanded gold ornaments. On January 14 this year, the accused and his family told the woman that they were calling off the marriage, citing her ‘quarrelsome’ nature.

The accused had then approached the high court seeking quashing of the FIR, he and the woman were in a consensual relationship and the marriage was called off due to issues between them.

The court, however, refused to accept the argument, holding that right from the beginning, the accused had no intention of marrying the complainant.

“The present case is not one of those cases where there is a bona fide intent of the petitioner to marry the respondent and on that assurance, the parties enjoyed intimate relationship but unfortunately the same did not fructify in a marital tie,” said the bench.

It added that the consent, if any, of the survivor, was vitiated by “misconception of the fact” that the woman believed that the accused would marry her and therefore, it was not a fit case to strike down the FIR.