The Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench, has discharged a Member of Parliament from all charges in a rape case, holding that the prosecution’s own material showed a long-term consensual relationship between two married adults and that the allegations, as they stood, were inherently improbable, so that continuing the trial would be an abuse of process.
Lucknow: The Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench, has allowed a criminal revision by Rakesh Rathore, a Member of Parliament, set aside a Sitapur trial court’s order refusing to discharge him in a rape case, and discharged him from all charges, holding that the prosecution’s own material indicated a long-term consensual relationship between two married adults of mature age [Rakesh Rathore v. State of U.P. and Another].
Justice Subhash Vidyarthi passed the judgment on September 17, 2026 in Criminal Revision No. 566 of 2025, filed under Section 442 of the BNSS against the order of May 5, 2025 of the Additional District and Sessions Judge (FTC), Sitapur in Sessions Trial No. 424 of 2025. The complainant is not named. The allegations are those of the complainant, the revisionist denies them, and the findings below were made at the discharge stage on the material collected by the prosecution, not after a trial.
The background
FIR No. 16 of 2025 was registered on January 17, 2025 at Police Station Kotwali, Sitapur. The complainant alleged that she came into contact with the revisionist in 2018, when he was an MLA, that he proposed a political alliance under his protection, and that he raped her at his house in March 2020, then made repeated physical relations with her on a false promise of marriage and blackmailed her. She further alleged that after he became a Member of Parliament in 2024, he made her sign blank papers and threatened to defame her. A charge sheet was filed on March 10, 2025 under Sections 64(2), 69, 351(3) and 127(2) of the BNS.
The revisionist applied for discharge on April 30, 2025, arguing that the complainant’s statements showed a consensual relationship, that her version had improved over time, and that the investigation had been influenced by the ruling party because he had won on an opposition party ticket. The trial court rejected the application on May 5, 2025, holding that the material at the stage of charge had to be taken at face value, and framed charges on May 16, 2025. The High Court stayed the trial court’s order and the proceedings on May 20, 2025.
The complainant went to the Supreme Court against the interim order. On May 18, 2026, the Supreme Court declined to interfere with the interim order, but said the nature of the case required an earlier hearing and requested the High Court to try to dispose of the revision within four months.
What the parties argued
Senior Advocates Arun Sinha and Purnendu Chakravarty, for the revisionist, argued that even on the prosecution’s material there was a long-standing consensual relationship between two people who knew they were married to others, and that no offence was made out. They relied on Biswajyoti Chatterjee v. State of West Bengal, X v. A and Kunal Rameshbhai Kalyani v. State of Gujarat.
Senior Advocate and Additional Advocate General Vinod Kumar Shahi argued for the State that the complainant had consistently said she was forcibly raped in March 2020, that this allegation stands independent of the allegation of a promise of marriage, and that a court examining discharge cannot weigh the probative value of evidence. Senior Advocate Prashant Singh Atal, for the complainant, added that the revisionist had not challenged the order framing charges. The State relied on Tarun Jit Tejpal, J. Doraiswamy and Lillu v. State of Haryana, and also placed on record a forensic report that the voice in a recorded conversation between the two was the revisionist’s, and an FIR by the complainant’s husband alleging that the revisionist was pressuring the family to settle.
The scope of discharge
The Court set out the principles from Sajjan Kumar v. CBI, Tarun Jit Tejpal and State v. J. Doraiswamy. At the stage of Section 227 CrPC, the court may sift and weigh material for the limited purpose of seeing whether a prima facie case exists, need not accept all that the prosecution says as gospel truth if it is opposed to common sense or broad probabilities, and cannot hold a roving inquiry as if conducting a trial. Where material discloses only suspicion and not grave suspicion, the accused may be discharged. It also noted the Supreme Court’s recent observation in Anand Rai v. State of M.P. that at this stage the process itself can become the punishment.
The Court’s assessment of the material
Applying these principles, Justice Vidyarthi noted that the complainant is a married woman of mature age with grown children who was politically active, that she said she willingly accepted the offer of a political alliance, and that the alleged March 2020 incident took place not in a secluded place but at the house of a married man living with his wife and children. He noted that her statements to the doctor at her medico-legal examination recorded that no physical violence, restraint, weapon, verbal threat, luring or use of photographs for blackmail was involved, and that she answered many questions on the alleged sexual violence by saying she did not know. The medical opinion recorded no signs of force, and said sexual violence could not be ruled out. The Court held that this belied the allegation of forcible rape.
On the allegation of a promise of marriage, the Court noted that both parties were married, that the complainant did not allege in the FIR that she was willing to end her own marriage, and that she later added that the revisionist had promised to get her divorced in two minutes. The Court said this and the accompanying claim could not be believed by a person of ordinary prudence, and described the complainant’s account as a story so absurd that it could not be believed. It relied on Biswajyoti Chatterjee and Prashant v. State (NCT of Delhi), recalling the Supreme Court’s caution:
Every consensual relationship, where a possibility of marriage may exist, cannot be given a colour of a false pretext to marry, in the event of a fall out.
The Court further relied on a transcript of a recorded telephone conversation of August 26, 2024, in which, it said, the complainant herself called the revisionist and asked whether he would keep her after marrying her, which it read as showing that she had come to him of her own accord and not that she was being blackmailed. It noted that the complainant’s husband and family members who supported her account of a promise of marriage had blamed the revisionist for not marrying her. Reading the statements of the complainant and her husband that she visited the revisionist’s house frequently, at times late at night, it held that the material indicated a long-term consensual extra-marital relationship between two married persons of mature age. It also observed that the complainant’s own use of the recording might amount to blackmail of the revisionist by her.
The Court accepted the proposition in Lillu v. State of Haryana that a victim’s character is irrelevant in a rape case, and that even a woman of easy virtue has a right to refuse, but held that it did not apply here since the facts showed a long-standing consensual relationship between two married persons of mature age. Applying State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal, it held that the allegations were so absurd and self-contradictory that no prudent person could find sufficient ground to proceed, and that continuing the proceedings would be an abuse of the process of law and cause a failure of justice.
Framing of charges and Section 346 BNSS
The Court rejected the objection that the revisionist should have challenged the order framing charges, holding that its jurisdiction to examine the refusal of discharge is not taken away by the framing of charges, and that if discharge is wrongly refused the trial and charges fall. It also disagreed with the argument that Section 346 BNSS, and its two-month proviso for trials of certain offences, justified the trial court’s haste. It held that Section 346 applies to a trial that begins after charges are framed, that the proviso did not cover the offences charged here, and that judicial propriety demanded the trial court not hurry to frame charges when told the revision had been filed and would be taken up within a day or two.
The order
The revision was allowed. The trial court’s order of May 5, 2025 was set aside, the discharge application was allowed, and the revisionist was discharged from all charges.
Why it matters
The judgment applies the Supreme Court’s recent line of decisions on rape allegations that follow the breakdown of a consensual relationship to the stage of discharge, and shows a High Court sifting the prosecution’s own material, including a medico-legal report and a recorded conversation, to decide that no ground exists to proceed to trial. It also states that discharge remains open to challenge by revision even after charges are framed.
The findings are those of the High Court on the record at the discharge stage. The complainant alleged that she was raped and blackmailed, the revisionist denies this, and the trial court had found sufficient ground to proceed. The Court has reaffirmed that the character of a complainant is irrelevant in a rape case.
Case Title: Rakesh Rathore v. State of U.P. through Additional Chief Secretary (Home) and Another [Criminal Revision No. 566 of 2025]
Bench: Justice Subhash Vidyarthi, Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench
Date of Judgment: September 17, 2026
Appearances: Senior Advocates Arun Sinha and Purnendu Chakravarty, assisted by Advocates Nadeem Murtaza and Wali Nawaz Khan, appeared for the revisionist. Senior Advocate and Additional Advocate General Vinod Kumar Shahi, assisted by Additional Government Advocate Anurag Verma, appeared for the State. Senior Advocate Prashant Singh Atal, assisted by Advocate Priyanka Singh, appeared for the complainant.