New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has held that a man’s refusal to marry a woman due to mismatched horoscopes or ‘kundalis’—despite earlier assurances that led to a physical relationship—can amount to an offence under Section 69 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which criminalises sexual intercourse by deceit or on false promise of marriage.
The order was passed in a case where the man was seeking bail after being accused under Section 376 (rape) of the erstwhile IPC and 69 of the BNS.
The complainant said he repeatedly assured her that he would marry her, which led to their physical relationship. She told the court that he later refused to marry her on the grounds that their birth charts, or ‘kundalis’, did not match.
“The subsequent refusal to marry on the ground of non-matching of kundalis, despite earlier assurances to the contrary, prima facie raises a question as to the nature and genuineness of the promise extended by the applicant,” Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma said.
“Such conduct, at this stage, would attract the offence under Section 69 of the BNS,” she added.
The court denied the man bail after looking at the allegations, the material collected during the investigation, and the fact that the chargesheet in the case was yet to be filed.
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The case
In January this year, the woman lodged a complaint against the man, alleging sexual exploitation and deceit on the pretext of a false promise of marriage.
The complainant said she had known him and his family since 2018, and they had entered into a physical relationship at his residence in Delhi during their college days in July 2019.
She said the relationship continued for many years after he assured her of marriage.
Although the woman had earlier submitted a written complaint, she subsequently withdrew it after she was allegedly assured by him and his family that they would solemnise the marriage.
She said she had even been introduced to his family and relatives as his prospective wife and participated in family functions. To publicly affirm their relationship, he also gave her a ring.
However, he began distancing himself from her last year, from May onwards, and told her in June he wouldn’t be able to marry her since their ‘kundalis’ did not match.
She also said that he had threatened to leak her photographs if she told others. She then filed the present complaint.
What the court said
The court ruled that it was undisputed that the parties had known each other since their college days and had been in a relationship for several years.
It noted that the material on record—including the complaint, the statement of the prosecutrix and their WhatsApp chats—showed that the man had repeatedly assured the woman that he would marry her. He also led her to believe that there was no impediment to their marriage.
“The conversations also reveal that the applicant had insisted that physical proximity before marriage was not objectionable, as there was no hurdle in their marriage and it was projected as a natural progression of their relationship,” the court noted.
It added that the woman had taken steps like seeking their birth details to match their ‘kundalis’.
“The sequence of events, at this stage, cannot be viewed as a mere relationship turning sour, but rather suggests that assurances of marriage were repeatedly extended despite the applicant being aware of the insistence of his family on kundali matching,” the court said while rejecting bail to the man.
If the issue of kundali matching was so important for the applicant and his family, it should have been resolved before entering into physical relations, the court remarked in its order.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)