The Karnataka High Court has quashed a woman’s FIR accusing a man she matched with on the Bumble dating app of raping her. Justice M Nagaprasanna held that their “relationship was born of mutual volition” and therefore could not amount to a criminal offence.
The woman had approached the police after a meeting with the man she had accused—a 23-year-old identified for the purpose of this article as Mr A. The two had stayed in touch for more than a year over social media after they matched on Bumble.
According to the accused, they had stayed in touch via Instagram before deciding to meet in person on August 11, 2024.
The woman further said in her complaint, “He picked me up from my apartment and took me to an Oyo room … Shortly after settling in, Mr A began to seduce me into sexual intercourse, for which I instantly withdrew my consent. I explicitly informed him not to continue further. Despite my repeated objections and clear instructions to not proceed further, Mr A refused to listen. He continued to engage in sexual intercourse, disregarding my express withdrawal of consent.”
“I repeatedly requested him to stop and continuously questioned his motives, despite which he persisted in having sex against my will. The next morning, Mr A proceeded to drop me back to my apartment at 7.30 am, shortly after which I began experiencing stomach pain. When the pain worsened, I decided to visit the hospital to get a medical test done on 13th August 2024.”
The FIR was registered following her complaint, and Mr A was arrested.
Mr A sought to quash the proceedings in court, arguing that the relationship was consensual. His counsel, Advocate Athreya C Shekar, contended that the complainant’s version was inconsistent and that the police had “ignored the chats between the petitioner and the complainant, as over a year the petitioner and the complainant were in touch with each other on Instagram.”
Additional State Public Prosecutor BN Jagadeesha opposed the plea, submitting that the allegations clearly constituted rape and that questions of consent could only be decided at trial. The prosecution maintained that even in relationships formed on social media, allegations of coercion or lack of consent must be examined through evidence.
The court, however, agreed with the petitioner’s argument. Observing that while the chats between the parties were “not in good taste”, they indicated that the acts between the two were consensual. The bench held that continuing the case would amount to a misuse of criminal law.
The judgement records, “The factual canvass is narrow, the entire issue being rooted in the complaint dated 13-08-2024. The complainant avers that she withdrew her consent midway, but the petitioner nevertheless proceeded. Therefore, I deem it appropriate to notice the complaint.”
Quashing the proceedings, Justice Nagaprasanna, in the order, said, “A relationship born of mutual volition, even if it founders in disappointment, cannot, save in the clearest of cases, be transmuted into an offence under the criminal law. If the present prosecution were permitted to meander into a trial, it would be nothing but a ritualistic procession towards miscarriage of justice and indeed become an abuse of the process of the law.
With that, the court quashed the FIR.