Criminal law shouldn't be a tool in failed relationships: HC acquits 25-year-old man of rape

Cuttack: Cautioning that criminal law should not become a tool in failed personal relationships, Orissa high court has acquitted a 25-year-old man of raping a married woman.Setting aside the conviction and 10-year rigorous imprisonment, imposed by a fast-track court in Koraput district, Justice S K Panigrahi on May 22 said consensual relationships between adults cannot later be converted into criminal prosecutions in the absence of clear proof of lack of consent.

The judgment was uploaded online on May 27. The man is presently lodged at Jeypore Jail, said his advocate, Subodh Kumar Mohanty.According to the prosecution, while the married woman was alone at home, the 25-year-old allegedly entered her house and sexually assaulted her on the night of May 21, 2022. The additional district and sessions judge (fast track) of special court in Jeypore had convicted him under Sections 376(1) and 450 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) on July 10, 2025.While considering a criminal appeal filed by the man the same year, the HC held that the evidence on record did not establish absence of consent beyond a reasonable doubt.“Where a mature and married woman voluntarily consents to sexual intercourse and subsequently seeks to characterise the same as an offence of rape, the allegations are required to be examined with greater caution and circumspection,” Justice Panigrahi observed.

The judge said that “mere consensual intimacy, arising out of a voluntary relationship between adults, cannot ipso facto be brought within the ambit of the offence of rape unless the essential ingredients constituting absence of free consent are prima facie established”.The HC added Section 90 of the IPC dealing with consent obtained under fear or misconception cannot be “mechanically invoked” without clear evidence. Describing the prosecution case as deficient, Justice Panigrahi said it had “conspicuously failed to establish, beyond the shadow of reasonable doubt, the foundational elements of criminal intent and want of consent”.“Permitting every failed or strained relationship between consenting adults to be subsequently transformed into a criminal prosecution for the offence of rape would run contrary … to the true spirit, object, and sanctity underlying the law relating to sexual offences,” the judgment read.Holding that the trial court had improperly appreciated the evidence and arrived at an erroneous conclusion, the HC quashed the conviction.