'Sexual intercourse in 8 year relationship cannot be rape', says Supreme Court

A woman who has been in a relationship with a man and maintained a sexual relationship cannot claim rape after 8 years, the Supreme Court has said. The court passed the order while quashing criminal proceedings against a Bengaluru based man, Shivashankar alias Shiva.

The court said that it was difficult to regard sexual intercourse happening in a relationship as rape after 8 years. The court also took into account the statement by the 37-year-old lady that they had lived together as man and wife.

The lady claimed that the man had pretended to be in love with her and promised to marry her. In her complaint filed in 2017, she said that the man had applied kumkum to her forehead and also tied the Arishina threat to her neck.

She said that she had treated the man as her husband, but now he was trying to break up with her. "In the facts and circumstances of the present case, it is difficult to sustain the rape charges levelled against the appellant who may have possibly, made a false promise of marriage to the complainant," the court said.