Consensual Relationship Cannot Be Retrospectively Branded Rape Because It Ends: Supreme Court Discharges Man of Rape, Cheating and Bigamy Charges
Case Name: Santhosh Kumar N.P. v. State–Station House Officer, Kadirur Police, Tellicherry, Kannur District & Another.
Date of Judgment: 30 October 2026.
Citation: 2026 INSC 1179.
Bench: Justices B.V. Nagarathna and R. Mahadevan.
Held: The Supreme Court held that consensual sexual relations between adults cannot retrospectively become rape merely because their relationship subsequently ends. Courts must examine the relationship holistically and distinguish consent genuinely vitiated by deception from subsequent regret arising from its breakdown.
On the facts, the Court found no prima facie case under Sections 376, 420, 493, 494 and 495 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. It relied, among other circumstances, on the complainant’s continued cohabitation after learning of the appellant’s existing marriage, the absence of allegations involving delivery of property or valuable security, and insufficient material establishing solemnisation of the alleged second marriage. The Court nevertheless expressly recognised that genuine concealment of an existing marriage may vitiate consent and attract criminal liability where the necessary ingredients are established.
Summary: The complainant, a divorcee, alleged that Santhosh Kumar represented himself as a bachelor, underwent a marriage ceremony with her at a temple in Mysuru in 1996 and cohabited with her until 2003. She maintained that her consent to sexual relations rested on her belief that she was his legally wedded wife.
After their relationship ended, she instituted proceedings under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 in 2008. Those proceedings and the subsequent appeal were dismissed. An initial private criminal complaint was dismissed for non-prosecution. A second complaint was referred for police investigation and resulted in prosecution for rape, cheating, deceitfully inducing belief in a lawful marriage, bigamy and concealment of an earlier marriage.
The Trial Court refused discharge, and the Kerala High Court upheld that decision on 21 May 2025. Before the Supreme Court, the appellant contended that the relationship was consensual and that the complainant had continued living with him despite being informed by his brother, early in their cohabitation, that he was already married and had two children. The complainant relied on his alleged reassurances denying that information, documents concerning IVF treatment signed by him as her husband, and other records reflecting their relationship.
Applying Section 227 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, the Supreme Court reiterated that a discharge court may sift the material to determine whether a prima facie case or grave suspicion exists, without conducting a mini-trial or mechanically accepting the prosecution’s account.
The Bench found that the material disclosed a consensual relationship rather than sexual relations procured through the alleged continuing misconception of lawful marriage. It held that repeated intimacy within that relationship could not artificially be separated from its context to attract Section 376(2)(n).
The cheating allegation failed because there was no material showing dishonest inducement to deliver property or make, alter or destroy a valuable security. The Court also found the ingredients of Sections 493, 494 and 495 absent. Documents reflecting a longstanding personal relationship did not, by themselves, establish marriage, and the material concerning the alleged temple ceremony did not sufficiently disclose performance of the requisite marriage rituals.
While cautioning against using criminal proceedings to settle personal scores after relationships fail, the Court emphasised that rape remains underreported and that genuine cases involving sexual violence, coercion or manipulation of consent must be pursued vigorously.
Decision: The Supreme Court allowed the appeals, set aside the High Court’s impugned order and the Trial Court’s orders, and allowed the discharge application. Santhosh Kumar was discharged from the offences alleged against him under Sections 376, 420, 493, 494 and 495 IPC.