JYOTI TAIDE Vs. SUNIL DAMBARE AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Being aggrieved by the dismissal of a criminal complaint, the complainant has preferred this Acquittal Appeal to assail the legality and validity of the judgment passed by Eighth Additional Sessions Judge, (FTC), Durg, acquitting the respondent No.1, from the charges under Section 420, 406 and 376 of the IPC.

(2.) Facts of the matter, as gathered from the material on record, would reveal that appellant and accused had an affair leading to engagement for marriage and in the said course both the parties got engaged by exchange of rings, and thereafter, they got married in Gandharva form in a local temple, and eventually applied for marriage before the Marriage Officer under the Special Marriage Act 1954. However, according to the appellant, the accused did not appear before the Marriage Officer and thus he committed cheating, criminal breach of trust and rape upon her person on promise to marry.

(3.) There is no dispute about the fact that the complainant was more than 18 years of age when they develope affair and intimacy some time in the year 1996 - 1997. It is also not in dispute that during their interaction at personal level they became physical with the consent of each other and at that point of time, the appellant did not resist physical relation on the ground that such relation cannot be maintained prior to marriage. Merely because the marriage did not fructify at a later point of time, an offence under Section 376 would not be made out when both the parties agreed for sexual relations with eyes wide open and being aware of the consequences of the same. Had it been a case where the prosecutrix would be minor being less than 18 years of age, the entire legal position would be different. However, when both the parties are major and had a love affair at the time when they develop physical relations, an offence under Section 376 is not made out.