Section 69 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) is a new offence with no counterpart in the IPC: sexual intercourse obtained by deceitful means, or by making a promise to marry a woman without any intention of fulfilling it, where the act does not amount to rape. Introduced when the BNS came into force on 1 July 2024, it gives a specific statutory home to the "false promise of marriage" cases that Indian courts had wrestled with for decades.
What Section 69 BNS provides
Whoever, by deceitful means or by making a promise to marry a woman without any intention of fulfilling it, has sexual intercourse with her - such 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. The Explanation defines "deceitful means" to include:
- inducement for, or a false promise of, employment or promotion; or
- marrying by suppressing identity.
The two essential ingredients
First, the deception must exist at the time of the act - a promise to marry made dishonestly, with no intention of keeping it, or one of the listed deceitful inducements. Second, the intercourse must be one that would not otherwise be rape: the section expressly carves out cases "not amounting to the offence of rape", so where consent is absent or legally vitiated to that degree, the rape provisions apply instead. The line the courts had already drawn remains central: in Pramod Suryabhan Pawar v. State of Maharashtra (2019), the Supreme Court distinguished a false promise made in bad faith from the outset from a genuine promise later broken - a relationship that fails, or a marriage plan that collapses for real reasons, is not criminal deception. That distinction will do the same work under Section 69.
Procedure and bail
The offence is cognizable - the police can register an FIR and investigate without a magistrate's order - and non-bailable, so bail is at the court's discretion. It is triable by the Court of Session.
What changed from the old law
Everything - because there was no such section. Under the IPC, a woman deceived into a sexual relationship by a false promise of marriage could pursue, at most, a rape prosecution on the argument that her consent rested on a misconception of fact, an approach that produced uneven results and sat uneasily with genuine relationships that simply ended. Section 69 creates a distinct, lesser-than-rape offence for obtaining intercourse by deception, with its own ten-year ceiling. It has also drawn public debate - particularly the "marrying by suppressing identity" limb - and its precise contours will be shaped by the courts in the coming years.
Considering a complaint under Section 69, or accused in one? These cases turn on proving what was intended at the very start of the relationship - messages, conduct and timelines matter. Talk to a criminal lawyer in your city or browse advocates in the Free Law directory.