The Bombay High Court at Goa delivered a landmark judgment clarifying that when a woman books and moves into a hotel room with a man, this doesn't mean that she has granted consent for sex. While quashing the order passed in 2021 by a Margao Trial Court which had discharged a man, Gulsher Ahmed, of rape charges, Justice Bharat Deshpande said that the ruling of the lower court was on poor reasoning.

The trial court order in 2021 held that as the woman had actively participated in booking the hotel room, it amounted to giving consent for sexual relations with the accused. The High Court firmly rejected such an interpretation on account of the fact that such inference is  “against the settled proposition,” especially considering that the woman lodged a complaint soon after the incident.

Justice Deshpande said that those circumstances under which the room was booked could not automatically be linked up with consent to sexual intercourse. He said, “Even if it is accepted that the victim went inside the room along with the accused, the same cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as her consent for sexual intercourse."

Justice Deshpande pointedly noted that the trial court had “clearly committed an error” by implying that the woman’s involvement in booking the room indicated consent for sex. The observations of the judge reflect the distinction between entering a room and having given consent to sexual relations.

“Drawing such an inference is clearly against the settled proposition and specifically when the complaint was lodged immediately after the incident,” Justice Deshpande wrote in his ruling dated September 3, which was recently made public.

With the High Court decision invalidating the trial court discharge of Ahmed, the case restores rape charges by the principle that when consent given for one act cannot be extended as implying consent for another. The ruling underlines a strong legal stance on protecting individual consent in sensitive cases and reflects the Court’s adherence to legal standards regarding consent and personal autonomy.