Plea on false rape claims made a PIL

The Bombay HC recently allowed the conversion of a petition seeking guidelines for police while registering a rape or sexual assault case after a failed relationship to a public interest litigation. The petition by a Mumbai-based businessman and a model came up before a division bench of Justice Ranjit More and Justice Shalini Phansalkar Joshi. The petition questioned the invocation of rape charges under Section 376 of the IPC in such cases. Petitioners Firoz Khan and Jasmine (name changed) were themselves involved in such a case she lodged a case against him after they broke up. The HC, in 2016, quashed the case against Khan following an application by Jasmine that she had lodged it in the heat of the moment.

The decision of the court is reasonable as there have been numerous cases where penal provisions for rape are being misused by women. Many cases are being reported by women who have consensual physical relationship with a man but when the relationship breaks, they use the law as a weapon for vengeance and personal vendetta to extort money and sometimes even to force the boy to get married to her. Hence there is a need to formulate proper guidelines for the police so that such frivolous cases are not registered.