Broken Promise to Marry Is Not Rape: Supreme Court Clarifies Section 69 BNS in Landmark 2026 Ruling

EduLaw EditorialLandmark Judgements2026-09-12

The Supreme Court of India has drawn a decisive line between heartbreak and criminal liability. In Kunal Rameshbhai Kalyani v. State of Gujarat (2026), the Court held that a genuine inability to fulfil a marriage promise caused by unavoidable circumstances such as parental disapproval does not constitute deceitful conduct under Section 69 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Case Name: Kunal Rameshbhai Kalyani v. The State of Gujarat & Anr. Case Number: Criminal Appeal No. __ of 2026 [@ Special Leave Petition (Crl.) No. 11526 of 2026] Court: Supreme Court of India Judges: Hon'ble Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Hon'ble Justice K. Vinod Chandran Judgment Date: September 07, 2026 Citation: 2026 INSC 987; 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 925 ABSTRACT The interplay between romantic relationships, broken promises, and criminal law has long been a contested terrain in Indian jurisprudence. In Kunal Rameshbhai Kalyani v. The State of Gujarat & Anr. (2026 INSC 987), the Supreme Court of India addressed a critical question under the newly enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS): does a man's failure to marry a woman — after entering into a consensual physical relationship — automatically constitute the offence of sexual intercourse by deceitful means under Section 69 of the BNS ? The two-judge Bench of Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice K. Vinod Chandran answered in the negative. Quashing an FIR registered at Sayajiganj Police Station, Vadodara City, Gujarat, the Court held that a promise to marry that is subsequently withdrawn due to unavoidable circumstances — in this case, the accused's mother's disapproval — does not amount to deceit if the promise was originally made in good faith. The judgment clarifies the scope of Section 69 BNS, distinguishes it from the erstwhile framework under Sections 375 and 90 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 , and reaffirms the principle that a "breach of promise" is fundamentally different from a "false promise." This ruling carries significant implications for how Indian courts will interpret allegations of deceitful sexual conduct under the new criminal code. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: The Thin Line Between Broken Hearts and Broken Laws Factual Background of the Case Procedural History: From FIR to Supreme Court Legal Framework: Section 69 BNS and Its IPC Predecessor Supreme Court's Analysis and Key Observations The Distinction Between "False Promise" and "Breach of Promise" Relevant Case Laws and Judicial Precedents Conclusion: Implications for Future Litigation Under Section 69 BNS 1. INTRODUCTION: THE THIN LINE BETWEEN BROKEN HEARTS AND BROKEN LAWS When a romantic relationship ends — particularly one in which physical intimacy occurred alongside spoken or implied promises of marriage — the emotional fallout can be devastating. Indian criminal law, both under the now-repealed Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) that replaced it, has grappled with the question of when such a failed relationship crosses the threshold from personal disappointment into criminal culpability. The central tension has always been this: at what point does a broken promise become a fraudulent one? The judgment in Kunal Rameshbhai Kalyani v. The State of Gujarat & Anr. (2026 INSC 987) addresses this question squarely within the framework of Section 69 of the BNS , a provision that did not exist in the IPC and represents a new legislative carve-out dealing specifically with sexual intercourse obtained through deceitful means or a false promise to marry. The Supreme Court, through a concise yet richly reasoned order, has clarified that the mere failure to fulfil a marriage promise — without evidence that the promisor harboured dishonest intentions from the very inception of the relationship — cannot attract criminal prosecution under this provision. This ruling provides essential guidance to trial courts, high courts, and law enforcement agencies that will increasingly encounter Section 69 BNS allegations in the years ahead. 2. FACTUAL BACKGROUND OF THE CASE The facts of the case, as extracted from the FIR and recorded by the Gujarat High Court, paint a picture that is unfortunately common in modern India. The appellant, Kunal Rameshbhai Kalyani, and the complainant (second respondent) came into contact through a digital platform. What began as an online friendship gradually blossomed into a romantic relationship described as a "love affair." When the two met physically for the first time, the appellant communicated his desire to marry the complainant. It was during this first meeting that the complainant, as stated in her own complaint, "succumbed to his entreaties" and consented to sexual intercourse. This first instance of physical intimacy occurred on February 12, 2024. The relationship continued and, in April 2024, the complainant stayed with the appellant at a hotel for two days. The relationship, by all accounts, was ongoing and consensual. However, at some later point, the appellant informed the complainant that he could not marry her because his mother did not approve of the match. It was this refusal to marry — rooted, according to the allegations themselves, in parental disapproval — that prompted the complainant to file a First Information Report (FIR No. 11196030250292, dated May 20, 2025) at Sayajiganj Police Station, Vadodara City, Gujarat, under Section 69 of the BNS . 3. PROCEDURAL HISTORY: FROM FIR TO SUPREME COURT Following the registration of the FIR, the appellant moved the Gujarat High Court seeking quashing of the criminal proceedings. The High Court, however, declined to quash the FIR. In doing so, the High Court relied on the Supreme Court's earlier decision in Deepak Gulati v. State of Haryana (2013) 7 SCC 675 , a landmark judgment that had laid down the test for distinguishing between a false promise to marry (which vitiates consent) and a promise that is broken due to subsequent circumstances (which does not). Ironically, the very precedent relied upon by the High Court ultimately formed the foundation of the Supreme Court's reasoning in favour of the appellant. Aggrieved by the High Court's refusal, the appellant filed a Special Leave Petition (Criminal) No. 11526 of 2026 before the Supreme Court of India. The Supreme Court granted leave and converted the proceedings into a criminal appeal. The Bench of Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice K. Vinod Chandran, after hearing arguments from both sides, allowed the appeal and quashed the FIR in its entirety. 4. LEGAL FRAMEWORK: SECTION 69 BNS AND ITS IPC PREDECESSOR Understanding this judgment requires a careful examination of the statutory landscape, both old and new. Under the Indian Penal Code, 1860, there was no standalone provision that directly addressed sexual intercourse obtained through a false promise to marry. Instead, such cases were prosecuted under Section 375 IPC (defining rape) read with Section 90 IPC (dealing with consent given under fear or misconception of fact). The judicial test, as developed through decades of case law, required proof that the complainant's consent to sexual intercourse was vitiated because she had been led to believe in a promise of marriage, and that the accused, at the very time of making the promise, had no intention whatsoever of fulfilling it. These provisions now correspond to Section 63 (rape) and Section 28 (consent under misconception) of the BNS, respectively. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, which came into force on July 1, 2024, introduced an entirely new provision — Section 69 — that specifically carves out the offence of sexual intercourse by employing deceitful means. The section reads: "Whoever, by deceitful means or by making promise to marry a woman without any intention of fulfilling the same, and has sexual intercourse with her, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years and shall also be liable to fine." The Explanation further clarifies that "deceitful means" includes false promises of employment or promotion, and inducement or marrying after suppressing identity. The significance of Section 69 BNS lies in its dual nature. On one hand, it recognises a separate, distinct offence below the threshold of rape — acknowledging that deceitful conduct causing a woman to consent to sexual intercourse, even if it does not meet the ingredients of rape under Section 63 BNS , deserves criminal punishment. On the other hand, it retains the same evidentiary rigour: the prosecution must demonstrate that the promise to marry was made with the intention, from the very beginning, that it would never be fulfilled. A genuine promise that later proves impossible to keep does not satisfy this requirement. As the Supreme Court observed in the present case, the BNS "brought in a separate offence carving out the fraudulent and deceitful conduct as spoken of therein from the grave offence of rape, while at the same time providing a penalty for the deceptive conduct alleged therein." 5. SUPREME COURT'S ANALYSIS AND KEY OBSERVATIONS The Supreme Court's analysis in this case, though contained in a compact order of five pages, addresses several layers of legal reasoning. The Bench began by examining the High Court's reliance on Deepak Gulati v. State of Haryana (2013) 7 SCC 675 and, notably, did not disagree with the principles stated therein. Instead, the Court found that the High Court had misapplied those very principles to the facts at hand. Paragraph 24 of the Deepak Gulati judgment — which the High Court had itself extracted — clearly states that "there may, of course, be circumstances, when a person having the best of intentions is unable to marry the victim owing to various unavoidable circumstances," and that "failure to keep a promise made with respect to a future uncertain date, due to reasons that are not very clear from the evidence available, does not always amount to misconception of fact." The Supreme Court then turned to the complaint itself and made two critical observations. First, the Court noted that the complaint did not even allege that the first instance of physical relations was conditioned upon a promise to marry. The complainant's own words — that she "succumbed to his entreaties" — indicated that the physical relationship was consensual and not induced by a marriage promise. The Bench stated: "The statements made in the complaint clearly indicate a consensual relationship and we do not find anything to find a deceitful conduct, of, the appellant having induced the complainant into sexual intercourse, which she succumbed to only on the promise to marry." Second, and perhaps most crucially, the Court observed that the complainant herself had stated that the appellant refused to marry her because his mother did not permit it. Far from evidencing deceit, this allegation actually supported the inference that the promise, if at all it was made, was made in good faith. As the Bench put it: "In any event, the very complaint is that the appellant refused to marry her later, because his mother did not permit it, which indicates that the promise was made with all good intention, if at all it was made." The Court further held that the "mere communication of the desire of the appellant to marry her" cannot be treated as the use of "deceitful means" within the meaning of Section 69 BNS. 6. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN "FALSE PROMISE" AND "BREACH OF PROMISE" One of the most enduring and practically significant aspects of this judgment is its reinforcement of the distinction between a "false promise" and a "breach of promise" — a distinction that Indian courts have articulated in several landmark cases but that continues to be misunderstood and misapplied at the trial and High Court levels. A "false promise" exists when the accused, at the very moment of making the promise, has no intention of ever fulfilling it. The promise is merely a tool of deception — a means of obtaining the woman's consent to sexual intercourse. In such a case, the consent is vitiated because it was obtained through a misconception of fact, and the accused can be prosecuted either for rape under Section 63 BNS (read with Section 28 BNS ) or, where the conduct does not amount to rape, under Section 69 BNS . The Supreme Court in Pramod Suryabhan Pawar v. State of Maharashtra (2019) 9 SCC 608 had explained this with great clarity, holding that "the 'consent' of a woman with respect to Section 375 must involve an active and reasoned deliberation towards the proposed act" and that "the promise of marriage must have been a false promise, given in bad faith and with no intention of being adhered to at the time it was given." A "breach of promise," by contrast, occurs when the promise was genuinely made but the promisor later finds himself or herself unable to fulfil it due to circumstances that were not anticipated or controllable — such as parental objection, financial difficulties, caste or community pressures, or changed personal circumstances. In Deepak Gulati v. State of Haryana (2013) 7 SCC 675 , the Supreme Court held that Section 90 IPC (now Section 28 BNS) "cannot be called into aid in such a situation, to pardon the act of a girl in entirety, and fasten criminal liability on the other, unless the court is assured of the fact that from the very beginning, the accused had never really intended to marry her." Similarly, in Jaspal Singh Kaural v. The State of NCT of Delhi (2025) , the Supreme Court reiterated that a consensual relationship, even if followed by a breach of a promise to marry, does not amount to rape where there is evidence of the accused having genuinely acted in furtherance of the marriage promise. The present judgment in Kunal Rameshbhai Kalyani firmly places the facts of this case in the "breach of promise" category. The complaint itself disclosed no initial deceitful intent; the relationship was consensual from the outset; and the reason for not marrying — the mother's objection — was an external circumstance that, if anything, demonstrated the genuineness of the appellant's original intention. 7. RELEVANT CASE LAWS AND JUDICIAL PRECEDENTS The judgment in Kunal Rameshbhai Kalyani, while brief, draws upon and reinforces a robust line of Supreme Court precedents on consent, false promise, and sexual offences. These precedents collectively establish the interpretive framework within which Section 69 BNS must be applied. Deepak Gulati v. State of Haryana (2013) 7 SCC 675 remains the foundational authority. The Supreme Court in that case drew a clear line between "misconception of fact" and "mere breach of promise," holding that criminal liability can be fastened only where there is evidence that the accused never intended to marry the victim from the very beginning. The Court also recognised that unavoidable circumstances may prevent a person with the "best of intentions" from fulfilling a marriage promise, and that such a failure does not amount to a misconception of fact under Section 90 IPC . Pramod Suryabhan Pawar v. State of Maharashtra (2019) 9 SCC 608 further refined the test by explaining that two promises may look identical from the outside but differ fundamentally in their underlying intent. A "false promise" — one given in bad faith — vitiates consent and may attract criminal liability. A "breach of promise" — one given in good faith but later broken — does not. The prosecution bears the burden of proving that the promise falls in the first category. Yedla Srinivasa Rao v. State of Andhra Pradesh (2006) 11 SCC 615 represents the opposite end of the spectrum, where the Supreme Court upheld a rape conviction because the evidence clearly demonstrated that the accused's promise to marry was false from the start and was used solely as a device to obtain consent to sexual intercourse. Anurag Soni v. State of Chhattisgarh (2019) likewise upheld a conviction where the facts demonstrated that the accused made a marriage promise with no genuine intent to follow through, using it purely as a means to establish a sexual relationship. Jaspal Singh Kaural v. The State of NCT of Delhi (2025) is a more recent authority in which the Supreme Court held that physical relations established pursuant to a promise to marry do not amount to rape in every case, particularly when the accused's conduct demonstrates that he was genuinely acting in furtherance of the marriage promise. Read together, these decisions establish a consistent principle: Section 69 BNS punishes deceit, not disappointment. It targets the predator who fabricates a marriage promise as a tool of manipulation, not the individual whose genuine intentions are thwarted by life's unpredictable circumstances. 8. CONCLUSION: IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE LITIGATION UNDER SECTION 69 BNS The Supreme Court's decision in Kunal Rameshbhai Kalyani v. The State of Gujarat & Anr. (2026 INSC 987) is significant not merely for its immediate outcome — the quashing of an FIR — but for the interpretive clarity it brings to Section 69 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 , a relatively new provision that has yet to accumulate a substantial body of judicial interpretation. By pronouncing upon the scope of Section 69 so early in the life of the BNS, the Supreme Court has laid down essential guardrails that will guide lower courts, investigating agencies, and litigants for years to come. The judgment sends a clear message on multiple fronts. To investigating agencies and trial courts, it signals that the mere registration of an FIR under Section 69 BNS — based on an allegation that a man promised to marry a woman, entered into a physical relationship with her, and later failed to marry — is insufficient unless the complaint discloses, at a minimum, that the promise was dishonest from the outset. To complainants and their legal advisors, it underscores the importance of specifically pleading and demonstrating the element of initial deceitful intent, rather than simply alleging a subsequent failure to marry. And to accused persons, it affirms that the courts will scrutinise the complaint on its face value and will not allow the machinery of criminal law to be set into motion on the basis of allegations that disclose nothing more than a consensual relationship that ended in disappointment. The judgment also highlights an important structural feature of the BNS: the creation of Section 69 as a distinct offence, separate from rape under Section 63 , was a deliberate legislative choice to penalise deceitful conduct without conflating it with the graver offence of rape. The Supreme Court's interpretation honours this legislative intent by insisting on the same rigorous standard of proof — evidence of initial dishonest intent — that was required under the IPC regime. The provision targets fraud, not fate. It punishes the manipulator who weaponises a promise of marriage, not the person whose genuine commitment is overcome by circumstances beyond their control. In an era where digital platforms increasingly facilitate romantic connections — as was the case here, where the parties met online — and where the boundaries between courtship, commitment, and consent are often ambiguous, this judgment provides a necessary anchor of legal certainty. It reaffirms that Indian criminal law, even as it evolves with new codes and new offences, continues to demand proof of guilty intent before imposing criminal punishment. Heartbreak, however real, is not a crime. Deceit, proven through evidence of dishonest intention from the very beginning, is. Key Provisions Referenced: Section 69, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 — Sexual intercourse by employing deceitful means, etc. Section 63, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 — Rape (corresponding to Section 375 IPC) Section 28, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 — Consent given under fear or misconception (corresponding to Section 90 IPC) Section 375, Indian Penal Code, 1860 — Rape Section 90, Indian Penal Code, 1860 — Consent known to be given under fear or misconception Key Case Laws Referenced: Kunal Rameshbhai Kalyani v. The State of Gujarat & Anr., 2026 INSC 987 Deepak Gulati v. State of Haryana, (2013) 7 SCC 675 Pramod Suryabhan Pawar v. State of Maharashtra, (2019) 9 SCC 608 Yedla Srinivasa Rao v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (2006) 11 SCC 615 Anurag Soni v. State of Chhattisgarh, (2019) Jaspal Singh Kaural v. The State of NCT of Delhi, (2025)