The Bombay High Court declined to quash an FIR against an academician who married even as his first marriage was under subsistence. The Bombay High Court, making strong observations, said that such an act not only falls under bigamy, but can also fall under the offence of rape. A man who was booked by the Pune police under IPC sections 376 (rape) and 494 (bigamy) had filed a petiton in the court. On August 24, Justices Nitin Sambre and Rajesh Patil dismissed the man's petition.
The FIR mentioned that the man as well as the woman who he married (2nd marriage) are both academicians by profession. The FIR said that the man used to visit and meet the woman after she lost her husband who passed away in February, 2006, to offer moral support. The man also said that was not on good terms with his wife and that he had made the second woman believe that he had divorced her.
After marrying the second woman in 2014 in the month of June, the man lived with her till January 2016. However, the man abandoned the woman academician and went back to his first wife. The woman than said that the man had falsely claimed that he had divorced his first wife and made false promises of marriage to have physical relationship with her.
However, the court said that the man not only made false promises and tried to claim that the relationship was consensual, but also got into a second marriage knowing that his first marriage was subsisting. The judges summed up that physical relationship with the complainant knowing when the first marriage was under subsistence could have been enough for the offence to fall under section 376 (rape).
