The court found that the petitioner and respondent had relations due to their liking and not because of false promise of marriage. The FIR was lodged when the marriage, which was already settled, got cancelled due to some differences. Allowing a writ petition filed by petitioners – Neelesh Ramchandani, his father and another, a division bench comprising Justice Siddhartha Varma and Justice Abdul Shahid observed: “We are of the view that section 69 of BNS punishes deceit and not disappointment. In the present case, we find that there was an agreement between the parties to marry, and there was in fact no unilateral or deceitful promise by the first petitioner to the fourth respondent (girl) that he would marry her in future. The agreement therefore to marry was very much in existence between the parties. There was no false promise from either side.” The court further noted that: “We are also of the view that the timing of the FIR was such which was not congenial to the fourth respondent. The FIR having been lodged at a time when the first petitioner thought that marriage was not possible for one reason or the other. We are also of the considered view that the evidence which has been provided was to the extent that there was no false promise of marriage or deceitful means from the side of the first petitioner.” Two ingredients were essential for making out an offence under section 69 of BNS. First, if a man had sexual intercourse with a woman and the sexual intercourse was a result of a certain deceitful means adopted by the man or was a result of such promise to marry the woman without any intention of getting married. The fourth respondent (girl) lodged FIR under some sections of BNS, including section 69, on Dec 24 at police station – sector 63 of Noida, Gautam Budh Nagar against the petitioner, his father and another. Thereafter, the petitioners filed the present writ petition for a direction to quash the said FIR and, as an interim measure, issue a direction to the respondent police authorities not to arrest the petitioners in pursuance of the impugned (under challenge) FIR.
