New Delhi: Marrying a woman by concealing identity or having intercourse under false promise of marriage, promotion and employment will attract up to 10-year imprisonment with a bill introduced on Friday proposing a specific provision to deal with these offences for the first time.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah introduced the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Bill, to replace the Indian Penal Code (IPC) of 1860, in Lok Sabha and said a special focus has been given to provisions related to crimes against women.
“Crime against women and many social problems faced by them have been addressed in this bill. For the first time, intercourse with women under the false promise of marriage, employment, promotion and false identity will amount to a crime,” he said.
While courts have dealt with cases of women claiming rape on the basis of breach of promise of marriage, there is no specific provision for this in the IPC.
The bill, which will now be examined by a Standing Committee, states: “Whoever, by deceitful means or making by promise to marry to 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.” It further states that “deceitful means” shall include the false promise of employment or promotion, inducement or “marrying after suppressing identity”.
Senior criminal lawyer Shilpi Jain said this provision was long overdue and due to the absence of such a provision, cases were not regarded as a crime and were open to a lot of interpretation from both sides.
While some saw the specific provision about “marrying after suppressing identity” being targeted at cases of interfaith marriages under false names, Ms Jain told PTI that would be open to interpretation.
The key point here is that consent of the victim taken under false pretence cannot be termed voluntary, she said.
“Women are being exploited in our country by men who have sex with them after promising them marriage and it’s an offence if men at the time of making the promise had no intention to marry,” she said.
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