Failure To Marry Is Not Automatically A False Promise, But Intent Is For Trial To Decide: MP High Court

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has refused to quash a criminal case against a bank manager accused of establishing physical relations with a colleague on a false promise of marriage, holding that whether the promise was dishonest from the beginning is a question only a trial can settle.

Dismissing the plea, Justice Himanshu Joshi said a court exercising inherent jurisdiction “cannot conduct a mini-trial or undertake a comparative assessment of the rival versions.”

The applicant had approached the court under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (Section 482 of IPC), seeking to quash an FIR dated January 17, 2026, registered at Mahila Police Station, Mandla, under Section 69 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, which deals with sexual intercourse obtained through deceitful means, including a false promise of marriage. He also sought to quash Sessions Trial No. 24/2026 pending in Mandla.

According to the prosecution, the complainant, a 32-year-old bank manager, got acquainted with the applicant, also a manager in the same bank, through a common friend. She alleged that from September 2022 he said he intended to marry her, and that physical relations followed on several occasions from January 2023, even though she had insisted on marriage first.

She further claimed that in February 2023 the applicant asked her mother to approach his family with a proposal, but his mother declined it. In November 2025, she said, he told her his family had chosen another girl. She lodged the FIR after learning that he was about to marry someone else.

Appearing for the applicant, advocate Ravi Shankar Yadav argued that the prosecution was a “counterblast” to his client’s decision to proceed with his matrimonial life. He submitted that both parties were mature, educated and financially independent adults who stayed together voluntarily, that marriage talks between the families were genuine, and that the two later agreed to part ways. He relied on a legal notice dated January 10, 2026, the applicant’s engagement on January 11 and the FIR that followed on January 17.

Panel lawyer Raghuvar Prajapati for the State and advocate Shankar Dayal Mishra for the complainant opposed the plea. They contended that the FIR contained specific allegations, that dishonest intention at the outset was a matter for evidence, and that since a charge-sheet had been filed, no ground for quashing existed.

The High Court noted that the FIR contained “specific and detailed allegations” and was not vague, citing instances dated January 23, 2023, March 11, 2023 and October 23, 2025.

The court said “every failure to fulfil a promise of marriage does not constitute a false promise for the purpose of criminal liability.” The promise must have been false when made, and it must have had a direct link with the consent for the sexual act. A later refusal or inability to marry, “by itself, is not sufficient,” it added.

However, the bench held that the FIR, “if taken at face value, prima facie raises the ingredients of the offence alleged.” Matrimonial negotiations, the legal notice and the engagement “may constitute material for his defence,” the court said, but their evidentiary worth could not be conclusively determined in proceedings under Section 528 (Section 482 IPC).

The court also rejected the argument built on the complainant’s background. Her being an educated and financially independent bank manager did not, by itself, decide whether her consent was obtained by deception.

On the timeline, the court said the sequence of the legal notice, engagement and FIR did not “by itself establish that the FIR is malicious.” Their proximity, it added, could not justify “termination of the prosecution at the threshold.”

Finding that the defence raised “disputed questions of fact and appreciation of evidence,” the court dismissed the application. The applicant remains at liberty to establish during trial that the relationship was consensual, that the marriage talks were genuine and that there was no dishonest intention at the inception.

Case Title: Shri Arpit Anoop Maravi vs. The State of Madhya Pradesh and Others

Order Date: September 28, 2026

Bench: Justice Himanshu Joshi