Sexual intercourse in long-term relationship not rape, says SC

Sexual intercourse in long-term relationship not rape, says SC

What has happened?

Sexual intercourse in the course of a long-term relationship cannot be classified as rape, the Supreme Court has held.

Petition

• The Bench was hearing an appeal against an order of the Karnataka High Court, which refused to quash a rape case.
• The woman alleged that she had lived with the man for a period of eight years.

SC observed

• It is difficult to hold sexual intercourse in the course of a relationship, which has continued for eight years, as ‘rape’, especially in the face of the complainant’s own allegation that they lived together as man and wife
• This was especially true if the complainant-woman herself alleges that she and the accused had lived as man and wife.