She said rape. He said consensual. 1,000 WhatsApp messages later, the Supreme Court agreed.

She accused him of rape. But she had voluntarily travelled with him, posed as his wife at a hotel, and exchanged over 1,000 WhatsApp messages after the alleged incident. On a March morning in 2024, the Supreme Court of India looked at those messages and asked a question that would unravel the prosecution's entire case: if this was rape, why did she keep talking to him?

The answer, the Court found, was that the story the prosecution told did not match the evidence. In criminal law, that mismatch is fatal.

The guest house register that became a witness

The date was 22 May 2018. The place was Bhiwani, Haryana. A married 28-year-old graduate woman said a man she knew through her husband's brother forced her into a guest house room and raped her. The guest house register—its pages yellowed at the edges, the ink of her signature still legible—would later become a silent witness against her own testimony. He took obscene photographs, she said. He threatened her.

The Trial Court believed her. It convicted the accused under three sections of the Indian Penal Code: Section 342 (wrongful confinement), Section 376 (rape), and Section 201 (causing disappearance of evidence). The sentence was life imprisonment under Section 376. The High Court confirmed the conviction. The accused appealed to the Supreme Court.

But when the bench—Justice Abhay S. Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan—read the woman's own testimony, a different picture emerged. She had voluntarily exchanged WhatsApp messages with the accused for weeks before the incident. She willingly accompanied him in his car across multiple locations. At the guest house, she posed as his wife and signed the register on departure without protest. After the alleged assault, she continued WhatsApp conversations with him—hundreds of messages, a cascade of blue and grey bubbles on a phone screen that told a story of its own. The prosecution also failed to produce CCTV footage from the guest house.

The WhatsApp trail that told a different story

The Court found her conduct inconsistent with a victim of rape. She was a graduate, 28 years old, and married. Her home was near the guest house. She had multiple opportunities to leave, to seek help, to stop communicating. Instead, she posed as the accused's wife at the hotel reception, signed the register, and kept messaging him.

The prosecution's case rested entirely on her testimony. But her own words, read alongside the WhatsApp messages and the hotel records, told a story of voluntary participation rather than coercion. There were no injuries on her body that contradicted her deposition. The CCTV footage—which could have settled the matter—was withheld by the prosecution.

When the presumption of non-consent collapsed

The prosecution tried to invoke Section 114A of the Evidence Act—a legal presumption that, in certain rape cases, the court must assume the woman did not consent. The Court shut that door firmly.

Section 114A can only be used when a charge is framed under specific clauses of Section 376(2) of the IPC—including Section 376(2)(f), which covers rape by a person in a position of trust or authority. In this case, no such charge was framed. The accused was never told, during his examination under Section 313 CrPC (the stage where the court asks the accused to explain the evidence against him), that he was being prosecuted under Section 376(2)(f). The Court held that without that charge, and without putting the allegation to the accused, neither the prosecution nor the victim could invoke Section 114A at a later stage.

The Court made a broader point: unless a specific law places the burden of proof on the accused, the prosecution must prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The accused has no obligation to prove his innocence.

The certificate the prosecution forgot

The case also touched on a technical but crucial point about electronic evidence. The prosecution had relied on WhatsApp messages. The defence argued these messages were inadmissible because they lacked a certificate under Section 65B of the Evidence Act—a formal certificate confirming the electronic record is authentic.

The prosecution tried to bypass this requirement using Section 294 CrPC, which allows documents to be read in evidence without formal proof if both sides agree they are genuine. The Court rejected this argument. Section 294 does not override the requirement of a Section 65B certificate for electronic records. Moreover, the Court noted, Section 294 requires that parties be specifically called upon to admit or deny genuineness—and the court retains discretion to demand formal proof even when genuineness is undisputed.

The acquittal that followed the evidence

The Supreme Court concluded that the prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. The woman's own conduct—voluntary travel, posing as husband and wife, signing the register, proximity to home, absence of injuries, continued WhatsApp contact, and the prosecution's suppression of CCTV footage—collectively made her testimony unsafe to rely upon. As the Court held, when the prosecutrix's own testimony and conduct cumulatively demonstrate voluntary participation rather than coercion, her testimony is unsafe to rely upon and the prosecution fails to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

The conviction was quashed. The accused was acquitted of all charges. His bail bond was cancelled.

THE PLAY: In rape trials, the prosecution cannot rely on a presumption of non-consent under Section 114A unless the specific charge under Section 376(2) has been framed and put to the accused—otherwise, the burden remains on the prosecution to prove every element beyond reasonable doubt.

The WhatsApp messages never lied. The Court simply read them.